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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24150766">Amor Fati (My Love Of Destiny)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/porgsploitation/pseuds/porgsploitation'>porgsploitation</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Black Tapes Podcast</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Demons, Eldritch Horrors, Evil cults, F/M, Gen, Other</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 03:55:12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>18,469</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24150766</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/porgsploitation/pseuds/porgsploitation</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>What happened to Richard Strand pre Alex Reagan’s 11 phone calls.</p>
<p>Little soul,<br/>you have wandered<br/>lost a long time.</p>
<p>The woods all dark now,<br/>birded and eyed.</p>
<p>Then a light, a cabin, a fire, a door standing open.</p>
<p>The fairy tales warn you:<br/>Do not go in,<br/>you who would eat will be eaten.</p>
<p>You go in. You quicken.</p>
<p>You want to have feet.<br/>You want to have eyes.<br/>You want to have fears.</p>
<p>Jane Hirshfield</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alex Reagan/Richard Strand, Coralee Strand/Richard Strand, Thomas Warren/Coralee Strand</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. AMOR FATI  I (CORALEE)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Chapter One! Each chapter will be from one character’s point of view - beginning and ending with it. This will (ideally) chronicle up to Richard and Alex’s 11 phone calls (Though I’m giving myself 15 chapters to do it in.)</p>
<p>Comments, Kudos, etc aren’t needed - <i>Unless I get some facts wrong.</i> This is my first time writing for horror podcast fandoms. I’m bound to screw it up. </p>
<p>Sil-ul-ia is the “Raising of Hands” or praying in ancient babylonian mythology.  You can read more about it on <a>wikipedia</a></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Coralee is crying and she hates it. This was supposed to be <i>easy</i>. Ideally she should have a child-in-arms and Thomas should pick her up here and now and her son or daughter should be the new mantle. It would alleviate Richard’s burden. Perhaps in time in seeking for the child she could bring in Richard better two keys then one and he had to understand but he wouldn’t.</p>
<p>She was being naive. The big stupid stubborn bear of a man was smart. He was smart and despite all protests he made to the contrary he was a good man who was a good father and looking back at the gas station her chest felt it was going to crack in two. She should go back. She should go back and tell him everything. <i>Every single detail</i>. His father would want her to, hell he might welcome the notion of absolute power and authority…</p>
<p>She is about to - her timberland boots turning on the side of the road. She’s too far from the sea here. She can’t hear Tiamat’s song through the waves, the religion she was raised to. The religion Richard’s father had tried to protect him from. One foot falls in front of the other and that’s when the white van pulls up behind her. </p>
<p>If a heart can be torn in two it was Harriet Jacobson’s. Coralee Strand. </p>
<p>Thomas Warren is terminally handsome. His soul and heart and mind belongs to Tiamat and he has been justly and truly rewarded for it. When he steps up behind her he leans into her back and breathes against her neck. For the first time it felt like he was using her as a shield. Using her to protect himself without the same tenderness that her husband had demonstrated to her. Passion and fire burned between the two of them as Thomas caught her wrist and she turned to kiss him passionately. </p>
<p>His hands took her right hand in his, studying the ring Richard had given her.</p>
<p>“What? No engagement ring?” the other man’s hands were far too smooth, “Or did you leave it behind for him to find?”</p>
<p>“I had to make it look convincing.” she swallowed down the hope that it would be the “Signs of a struggle” and that he’d get to keep it instead of it rotting away in a locker in some police department. Still she felt tethered and tied to the man who held her, “...I missed you.”</p>
<p>“You have no idea how desperately I missed you.” Thomas Warren kissed her neck, “My desperate  sacrificial bride. I would have fucked you every goddamn night until you got pregnant. Richard Strand is a fool.”</p>
<p>
  <i>Richard Strand is a good sweet man who wanted to give Charlie everything in the world.</i>
</p>
<p>She would regret losing Charlie too.</p>
<p>“My only regret is being unable to provide - something something something noble.” She sighed, “It doesn’t feel right. Being so far from the sea and talking about her. Su-il-a to her.” </p>
<p>She felt rather than saw Warren roll his eyes, “Su-il-a.” the raising of hands in prayer. The opening of the doors to rush in her army. She fingered her ring and leaned against him.</p>
<p><i>Something</i> trickled into the back of her mind. It raced through her like a confused dog looking for a bone and she felt Warren stiffen.</p>
<p>“Block him.”  It was a command, “Here and now he decides to become a believer in his own abilities?” </p>
<p>“He’s always suspected.” Coralee threw up a wall of solid trees and <i>pushed</i> at her husband’s mind, “He’s just <i>scared</i>. Howard Strand put the fear of the false God into him when it came to her agents in this world. He’ll tear apart the natural order before he allows his mind to open up. It was a mistake for you to trust him.”</p>
<p>“That will be useful.” </p>
<p>She turned to face her lover, the one she’d truly wanted to marry, “...What?”</p>
<p>“Howard Strand’s abusive parenting can only stop a man’s desire for power so much.” Thomas Warren murmured, “So we play the longer game. There’s no child…” </p>
<p>His hand strayed to her flat belly and she felt that same sense of longing and shame fill her.</p>
<p>“So we make Richard into the tool he was born to be. If he will not plant, then he will be the scythe. Coralee, you underestimate how easily a man can be turned to a desire to gain power over his enemies.” Warren was smirking, “We’re all bastards at heart. You should know that.”</p>
<p>The wind picked up her hair and twisted it around her head as she frowned at him, “...Power over his enemies? You misunderstand - you don’t understand him.” his way of speaking was far too easy to pick up, “Despite everything I think he’s a truly good person who wants to help people. He’s not going to turn into some kind of power hungry monster.”</p>
<p>She kept her mind carefully blank. There were others in this that were power hungry monsters. Others that worked for her.</p>
<p>She felt that same push against her mind and she threw up wide trees, forests. She forced them into his vision pushing down his desire to find her. Somewhere in the distance she saw him stagger, panicked and shouting. </p>
<p>“All things are her tools, Coralee.” She imagined Thomas Warren’s hands tightening on her shoulders, “Good men are ground beneath her wheels. Tiamat will raise him into her strong right arm and we will all see the rewards of our devotion.” He stroked her hair before glaring back at the gas station - unseen by their eyes, “...The bastard is persistent isn’t he?”</p>
<p><i>Don’t find me Richard.</i> she tried to pass the feeling to him, to press it into his mind, <i>I’m gone. I’m gone.</i></p>
<p>“In any case. There is no greater tool than the media.” Thomas helped her into the van, handing her her Deva Corporation badge and gun, “For destroying a person’s soul.”</p>
<p>They picked up speed, driving out to the highway passing families, teenagers, preteens. She watched them go.</p>
<p>The gas station was a run down non-franchised thing. She barely caught a glimpse of Richard’s BMW and a man in light blue and green flannel looking frantically around.<br/>
---</p>
<p>The trees pressed in on Richard Strand and it was all he could do to keep from screaming. </p>
<p><i>Coralee?</i> all he had done was panic and call her name before it was like someone pushed them at him. The scent of pine and water and salt. He wanted to be near the water to get away from the damn trees. Their sharp scent filled his nostrils and he felt his stomach roll. </p>
<p>He had been arguing with her. Mostly because of the betrayal he’d felt. They had spent a week sitting at the cliffside trying to find something to talk about. This was supposed to be what their marriage counselor had called “healing”. A chance to talk to each other. All he’d done was throw rocks in the water and sit. </p>
<p>He couldn’t think about it now. He couldn’t digest the strange calm - the peace of the grave that passeth all understanding - that had come over him as he stood beside the crashing waves. The days they had actually been <i>in</i> the woods were a strange blur and he had hoped for something to <i>end it</i> and he recalled vaguely thinking, begging, someone, something, to end this absolute nightmare of a failed marriage. </p>
<p>The rain had driven them to a motel six and Coralee had spent the night in the other bed, her face turned to the wall, shoulders shaking.</p>
<p>And now this? </p>
<p>He slammed his hands on the top of his car before pacing along the side of the road. The wind whipped around the gas station, blowing his shirt and coat and chilling him to the bone. He felt none of it. The scent of the trees and pine and the world pressed in around him and it fed a dormant fire within his chest. </p>
<p><i>Coralee</i>. They had argued. They had argued and shouted about Charlie. Coralee had wanted to send her away to school. Richard had disagreed and when he’d barked out <i>You’re only her step mother</i> she’d hit him and he’d hit her back. He regretted that…</p>
<p>...But regret was distant and far away.</p>
<p>Lightning crackled in his mind. He’d been sitting in his car for hours waiting for her to come back, ignoring calls on his cell phone from Charlie and from June. He lay back on the seat and stared at the car ceiling pounding and chipping away at the world. <i>Coralee, where are you? Where are you?</i> </p>
<p>They were just thoughts. Never mind how pointed they felt. Wrapping his arms around his chest he remembered Coralee’s slim finger poking into his side. <i>You’re getting a little soft my love. Still want birthday cake?</i> and it had been one of the few moments this stupid damn week he’d <i>laughed</i>...</p>
<p>Lightning exploded in his mind and he curled over, <i>Coralee where are you?</i> His mind raced. Electricity exploded and he smelled salt air in his lungs. It burned his nostrils and cracked through his skin. The trees pressed in again and he, desperate for sleep, desperate to make his pounding headache go away, ran <i>through them</i>.</p>
<p>It only made sense. Just like when he’d run from Bobby Maimes’s body.  He hated the forest. He despised it, it was too far from...from…</p>
<p><i>Too far from the sea.</i><br/>
---</p>
<p>Beneath the waves and stone and slumber of the world, Tiamat stirred.</p>
<p>The ancient one was not the first or last of her kind. This world and dimension her dominion, her chosen, it’s time too short, but her orders and her armies lay in wait for the family she had cultivated. Her mantle, her tool, her <i>son</i>. She would come to him and he would be her vessel before opening and letting her into the world - to return at last, at last. This was her purview, her quest, her purpose. The things in the dark humans gave into eventually. Intangible, looming, present, always there. </p>
<p>The things that make monsters.</p>
<p>Her key was crying. His heart was broken. She was a creature of chaos but chaos could be kind. Things thrived in chaos. The opposite of war wasn’t peace, it was creation. </p>
<p>Her mantle was pained and hurting, her son was lost, surrounded by trees. She stirred, opened one great eye and stared through him…</p>
<p>And Richard Strand saw.<br/>
---</p>
<p>If you had been looking into the car where Richard Strand lay, you would have seen a man gone rigid, frozen with the whites of his eyes staring upward and gasping. </p>
<p>If you had been in the Three Rivers State Hospital you would have seen Simon Reese screaming in a language that - if anyone had cared to acknowledge - would have been recognized as ancient sumarian. </p>
<p>But if you were in the car with Thomas Warren and Coralee Strand - Coralee feeling more and more dirty minute by minute - you would have seen the two of them shoot up sharply and both curl away <i>screaming</i> as they saw their God stir.</p>
<p>“...Stop!” Thomas Warren was howling, “Stop! Stop the damned car-!”</p>
<p>Harriet Jacobson, Coralee Strand, all of the things that made up her being looked into the eye of chaos and knew fear. </p>
<p>Her heartbreak skyrocketed, her pulse racing in her chest as she felt and almost <i>saw</i> Richard standing in the van <i>with them</i>. It would have been funny as her mind went to the obvious <i>oh now you believe, now you want to be your true self.</i> but she knew that it was her, pulling him along, trying to show him the truth…</p>
<p>It was out of love.</p>
<p>On her deathbed, lying cold and alone, she would scream it to the stars. <i>I am sorry for loving you.</i> but she didn’t want to hurt him.</p>
<p>Love is selfish. </p>
<p>Using all the power that made her human, she <i>shoved</i> at Tiamat and Richard as hard as she could. </p>
<p><i>Lock it away. It’s not real. None of this is real. Don’t listen to her, don’t call her. Don’t. Don’t take him. Not yet. He’s not ready yet and he can’t know it was me. He can’t!</i> </p>
<p>The van was taking an exit as she collapsed to the floor coughing up blood. A few specks of the stuff. Her lungs heaved. Her nose dripped the same red ichor as she stared at Thomas Warren who was doubled over in pain.</p>
<p>There is one constant in all these universes. Over and Over and Over again. One thought. One iron thought that one character would always have. Coralee Strand had it now.</p>
<p>
  <i>I’ve made a huge mistake.</i>
</p>
<p>“...God. My God. Did you feel that? Perhaps we should turn around. Perhaps we should find him if she came for him that fast...if your loss broke him that quickly…”</p>
<p>“You can’t take him.”</p>
<p>Thomas Warren blinked, “...what?”</p>
<p>“I said.” Coralee murmured, “You can’t have him. He’s Tiamat’s.” </p>
<p>“Do you know who you speak to?” Thomas Warren was rising, “Do you know that I am her priest? Her advocate on earth? It is my duty to collect the key when he’s ready.”</p>
<p>She would come to regret this later. Spend hours in prayer raising her hands to Tiamat because she could have gone for Richard even if Warren didn’t. Something held her back. Something kept her frozen, something…</p>
<p>“And it’s my duty to protect my husband.”</p>
<p>Led her to draw her gun and shoot the driver in the head.<br/>
---</p>
<p>Spiral.</p>
<p>Crashing metal steel twisting. </p>
<p>Screams.</p>
<p>Across the country Charlie Strand shrieks in pain and runs to her grandmother and grandfather throwing her arms around them. She would never explain, could never explain that she had felt Coralee suffer but she did and her father…</p>
<p>The shadow of a dragon’s wings.<br/>
---</p>
<p>Richard Strand felt like his mind had been snapped in two for one brief moment, like the synapses and connections and muscular tissue were nothing and torn in pieces between the halves of his brain. He gasped, rolling over out of the car to puke up the shitty gas station burrito he’d tried before they had stopped for gas a second time. </p>
<p>Something beeped and he turned to look at his watch. <i>I’ve missed our flight.</i> There was a good chance June and Charlie would be at the airport in Chicago waiting for he and Coralee to step off the plane.</p>
<p>Charlie would be expecting to see her mother. </p>
<p>She was the only mother she’d ever known and she was gone. Kidnapped or taken or...What was he supposed to do? </p>
<p>He felt ripped apart. Staggering out of the car he stopped short. Two black and white police cars had encircled him, headlights and police lights blazing. </p>
<p>Head pounding, world breaking, he raised his hands above his head before falling to his knees amid shouts of “down! Down on the ground!” He slumped, going dead weight as the officers cuffed him, hauling him to his feet with their voices a dim droning buzz in his ears. His ass and back connected with the car as he slumped - staring at the windows.</p>
<p>He thought he saw, there peering through the trees, the ocean. Eyes closed, listening to the sound of the waves, he rolled his head back and let unconsciousness take him.<br/>
---</p>
<p>Miles away another collection of police cars were dealing with a man with barely any scratches on him sitting beside a torn up white van, bandages wrapped around his head. </p>
<p>Thomas Warren was furious. </p>
<p>Furious did not begin to describe his emotions. He was murderous, positively violent. To be her advocate on earth, her highest priest, did not mean that he was immune to emotions. He was a man. When Coralee had been chosen through ceremony and prayer to bear the mantle’s vessel he had railed and prayed to Tiamat for healing calm and peace. Coralee’s curling blond hair and bright green eyes and her psychic skill - she would have been a fantastic Warren. </p>
<p>She should have been. </p>
<p>But no. No, she was chosen for the highest honor. Howard Strand had been blessed by Tiamat to have a son and that son would open her door and Coralee would be the mother of the goddess’s vessel. And when she did that the child would be a king. Only Strand had resisted her (and what man would?! What man honestly would?!) and so now he was destined for kingship, or at least for power (the texts weren’t quite sure.) </p>
<p>And Coralee loved him. </p>
<p>She was willing to kill for him. </p>
<p>When he <i>reached</i> for Coralee he found a block as thick and concrete as a stone wall. Richard’s psychic intrusions were a wild little river of energy. He was all chaos - roaring sea foam and crashing waves. Coralee was bedrock. It was meant to be. They were destined to be together.</p>
<p>For a moment he wondered what Strand’s twin Cheryl would be like. Supposedly she possessed the same skill as her brother…</p>
<p>He let it slide. It would always be a male. Someone who would win the heart of Tiamat. Even if Coralee had managed to sire a child if it had been a girl it would have been useless. He wondered where Coralee was now, where she had run off to even as the paramedics marveled at how he didn’t have a scratch on him. Naturally, his gift was to bring Tiamat other servants. They led him to the ambulance. Getting people to Tiamat, she would bless him with whatever skills he needed. Coralee built walls, he brought people to Tiamat and Richard…</p>
<p>Richard spoke to her. She spoke through him.</p>
<p>He was jealous. That was what this was.</p>
<p>It pleased him to leave the ambulance later unharmed with the paramedics promising their undying loyalty to Tiamat, raising hands to her as he stepped out. His body was healed. He had no need for them anymore. As far as Coralee was concerned he had no need for her either. She had set Richard Strand on the path of the scythe. He could have been benevolent but their actions had doomed him to monstrosity. </p>
<p>Good. All to the good.</p>
<p>He pulled out the latest model cell phone and dialed - a black town car pulling up moments later. Sitting down, he folded his hands in his lap. </p>
<p>“Where to sir?” </p>
<p>“The airport.” He began sending messages. Soon people would be able to do this from their phones. Deva had claws in everything. Sending messages to everyone to keep an eye out for Coralee, he smiled broadly at the thought of seeing her and making her suffer. Without her in hand she could cause a problem. The truth was that for all her protesting and all of her pretending to be a good person, Coralee was too intense and focused on her own good. </p>
<p>He smiled. Everything always went according to plan.<br/>
----<br/>
Coralee Strand-That-Was sat in a diner on the edge of the shitty little truck stop. Her arm was broken (near as she could tell) - in three different places. She had a concussion, but she was always grounded. While Warren possessed supernatural healing and compulsion, she got things <i>done</i>. She was grounded.</p>
<p>Always. </p>
<p>For the first time however, she is grounded in herself. She could use her skills for herself and not to please anyone else. The tragedy of her life and her sense of self is that it would always preserve her first. Sipping her coffee she failed to realize that Tiamat’s mysterious will was funny that way. Her self preservation instincts. The wheels within wheels.</p>
<p>“Can I get you anything hon?” The waitress was a thick bodied older woman, a massive pair of breasts sitting atop a thick pair of hips with curly red hair on top, “...You look like you’ve been through hell.”</p>
<p>“Eggs and bacon. Sausage.” She felt like she’d been hollowed out between Richard and Tiamat crawling around in her mind, “...hash browns. Pancakes. And another cup of coffee.” It wore her out. She wondered if it would wear out Richard too. </p>
<p>Her thoughts turned to Charlie before throwing up a wall before reaching for the girl. This sort of thing was passed down in families. She had learned at her mother’s feet and Charlie - who by all rights should have learned from her father, had instead learned from <i>her</i>. It created a bond. It created a bond that she regretted with every fiber of her being breaking.</p>
<p><i>Oh Charlie bear.</i> </p>
<p>Her food arrived and she dug in, hungry as a dragon. In another town Richard Strand was hauled out of a police car pale and shaking, begging for a phone call. He had to call Charlie. The waves crashed and the noise filled all of their heads. The spheres moving in their circles.</p>
<p>Beneath their feet, the dragon slumbered.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Amor Fati (Richard)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>What happened to Richard Strand pre Alex’s 11 phone calls. Charlie Strand experiments with her powers. Richard Strand gets an attorney, we meet a major player.</p><p>As by the dead we love to sit,<br/>Become so wondrous dear,<br/>As for the lost we grapple,<br/>Though all the rest are here, —<br/>In broken mathematics<br/>We estimate our prize,<br/>Vast, in its fading ratio,<br/>To our penurious eyes!<br/>Emily Dickinson “As by the Dead” (XII)</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Notes: We learn more about some of the “Tiamat Cult” and The Order and it gets into canon divergence because we basically know very little to nothing about it. Takes place from 1998-2000.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It takes hours for Richard to wake up. By the time he does he’s sweaty and stinking in a Salinas California jail cell and he feels like he’s been rung out ot dry. He’s also starving. Thirsty and starving and weak - painfully weak. It feels like there’s bats flying around in his head. <i>Bats in the Belfry.</i> His mother would tap his head, <i>It sounds like you have bats in the belfry!</i> and his father would berate him for not being more aware of the world around him.</p><p><i>Fuck</i>.</p><p>Pushing himself to his feet he looked around, a hand groping for Coralee before he realized - she wasn’t there.</p><p>No she wasn’t there. The last thing he had said to her was <i>I’m not a joke, and I’m not a tool to be used!</i> before he’d stalked off remembering how his hands had shoved her last night. His father abused his children, but he had <i>never</i> hit his wife and for that level of rage to coil inside of him…</p><p>It made the aches in his body worse. Coralee <i>was not here</i> however and the reality of her disappearing along the highway made his head spin. He rose, staggering to the plastic wall of the jail cell and slamming his fists against it.</p><p>“Guard!...Guard!-”<br/>The Guard was a wall of a man calmly folding his hands across his chest and staring down at him with dark black eyes. He was older - Richard would remember that subtle look of disapproval for the rest of his life.</p><p>“Good to see you’re awake Mr. Strand.”</p><p><i>It’s Doctor-</i> Except not in any substantive way. He’d wanted to go to medical school at one point. It had never occurred to him why he’d abandoned that dream. Ashamed that his mind had jumped to his own woes instead of the situation at hand he swallowed.</p><p>“I need...An attorney.”</p><p>“One’s waiting for you.”</p><p><i>Oh thank God</i>. Despite appearances Richard Strand counted himself as liberal as he could. He knew that the justice system was predisposed to favor him - a white man who had his wife vanish along the side of the road. <i>Let the shame wash over you</i>. It sat with the shame of thinking of himself over Coralee. Of rising to her anger. <i>Because you are terrible.</i> <b>And everyone knows it.</b></p><p>The last four words made him stop and wipe his mouth before adjusting his glasses. Strands do not ask for help but he…</p><p>“If I could get some water.” He swallowed, “Feels like I was rung out.” </p><p>“I’ll get you something. Lawyer’s going to post your bail.” </p><p>He was led, in handcuffs, to a severe looking woman with long brown hair braided in a complicated style. It was unusual to say the least - some sort of mark of individuality he hadn’t expected. His throat worked as she folded her papers and rose to offer him a hand.</p><p>“Doctor Strand. You look like hell.” </p><p>“...Where’s my wife.” He mumbled the words, <i>I have a wife, I should ask about my wife.</i> “Where’s Coralee?” He dragged a hand through his hair and blinked, “My daughter. My in-laws...</p><p>“Perhaps.” She murmured, “We should wait until we can be alone?”</p><p>“He said he’d get me water.” There was a petulant whine in his tone as he pointed to the guard, “I’m <i>starving</i>. And I’m thirsty.”</p><p>“You and I will get something to eat.” The guard vanished and he hoped he would return with a drink, his lawyer’s features passive,“...I’m Melanie Sharpe.”<br/>“Richard.” </p><p>“I know.” She leaned back, “What’s going to happen now is we’re going to talk. We’re going to go and get a bite to eat because you look like shit and you’re going to tell me about the last week of your life.” </p><p>“...Isn’t it more important to be looking for Coralee?” His voice rose an octave in anger, sounding like a wild cat backed into a corner, “She’s out there missing…”</p><p>“Doctor Strand the police found blood and the flannel the gas station attendant identified that she was wearing a few miles down the road. They think she’s dead.”</p><p>Horror gripped his heart and squeezed it. He felt it clench and he wanted to puke up the nothing in his stomach. <i>Dead</i>. No. Blond hair limp and lifeless. Bright green eyes staring pointlessly at nothing. Amid all of that however was the sense that...something...was wrong with that statement. That the images in his head weren’t a cardinal focused truth.</p><p>He shook his head.</p><p>“What?...What?”</p><p>“I said they think she’s dead.” Melanie Sharpe’s tone had softened a hair, “And they think you killed her.”<br/>---<br/>Charlie is 10 years old and she is dreaming. </p><p>She had vivid dreams. Sometimes she would talk to her dad about them and Richard would break down the process of dreaming. She knew exactly how people dreamed, about regulating metabolism and health. She knew about blood and REM sleep and how they were hallucinations. How none of it was real. Having a father who adored science at the expense of magic meant she knew that Santa Claus was a nice idea based on a myth.</p><p>Her father had not appreciated her sharing that information with her class.</p><p>Still, she dreamed and when she dreamed she could go anywhere she liked. She could pace cliffs or race through ancient museums. She could run over mountains and valleys and no one, not even Richard Strand could stop her. </p><p>She had only told Coralee about the dreams and that was because of the shadow man in her bedroom.</p><p>When she was six years old she had first seen him. He stood in the corner of the room with his back to her in a top hat and an overcoat and his clawed hands digging into the wall. She had screamed and babbled at her father - running in to wake him up and crawl under the covers beside him. She had <i>clung</i> to him crying and Richard Strand had gotten up, untangled himself from his child and promptly gone to investigate.</p><p>She had always suspected that her father <i>knew</i>. That he had seen something. He had returned and told her firmly that there was nothing there. The shadow man whispered his name to her but it had been Coralee who had told her his name was Paul. That he was not a friend but a guardian. And that if she was firm with him he would go away. </p><p>
  <i>”Go away? You mean I’m not crazy? Dad always makes me feel-”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“You are not crazy.” Her mother stroked her hair, “Think of Paul like a guard dog.”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“He’s terrifying.” </i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Good guard dogs are supposed to be scary.” Coralee murmured, “But what I will do, is I will teach you how to talk to him if you’d like. I will teach you how to use him and those like him because you see Charlie...my wonderful Charlie bear...you are special. And he’s here to keep you safe.”</i>
</p><p>She had never felt wholly safe around Paul and it seemed like once Coralee taught her how to see him she saw him everywhere. In the corners, in shadows, underneath her bed in the school closet. He was a grim sort of presence and she could never find him wholly comfortable. </p><p>Being taught about Paul came with other teachings too however. Travelling to strange places. Wandering the halls of all the great landmarks in Europe. She particularly loved the Vatican. She wasn’t religious but the awe and wonder of the tall spires of gold and the history most of all affected her. </p><p>She would walk about the halls and quietly nudge candles and secret sacred objects like a ghost.</p><p>Tonight however she was wandering the cliffs at Big Sur looking for Coralee and her father.</p><p>Despite her father’s moods, he was the only father she had and she loved him. He was the man who made her egg rolls and the man who taught her how to cook even at a young age. When her mother couldn’t take care of her as a baby he had taken her in. When she learned that her mother had not technically <i>wanted</i> her in the traditional sense he had held her as she cried bitter tears. He wanted her and he loved her and she did not need to be special to know that he loved her with a papa-bear strength that led him to look in on her every night she slept - body in bed, spirit smiling at his worry and concern.</p><p>She came to the edge of the cliff and found Coralee.</p><p>Her step mother looked beautiful and sad and hurt. One arm hung in a sling and the other was holding it. She had a cut on her forehead and she looked heartbroken. Her blonde hair covered her face and features and strands fell over her nose and eyes and mouth.</p><p>“Charlie Bear.”</p><p>“Mom?”</p><p>She moved forward to hug her but Coralee held her back, “I don’t have much time my love. Things are in motion that I can’t stop. I had to see you though. I had to tell you I love you and beg you to try and forgive your father for what’s about to happen. For all of what’s about to happen.”</p><p>“Forgive what?” she held out her hands, “You guys are on dad’s birthday trip. You’ll come back…”</p><p>Her eyes went wide, “You’ll come back right mom? You’ll come back?”</p><p>“Listen to the waves baby.” Her mother gestured, “The waves will tell you who you are. Do you remember about the role I told you you would play?”</p><p>“My element is air.” </p><p>
  <i>”Tiamat gives us all elements. And we are all party to her chaos. Your element is strong air. It means you can travel where you want. My element is earth. It means I ground people. I help remind them who they are.”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“What about Dad?” She swallowed, “I hear him sometimes telling himself no. He can’t wander. Is he air too?”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“He is fire. Fire is a rare element. Fire only burns with fire.” She nodded slowly and Charlie remembered a twinge of fear, “...Fire is Chaos’s purest form.”</i>
</p><p>“That’s right. So I want you to remember how much I love you.” Coralee’s voice softened, “But I don’t want you to look for me.”</p><p>“What?...What?” Charlie blinked, “Mom. What’s going on?”</p><p>“Things are moving Charlie. And I have to keep you and your dad safe. Just know please, please know Charlie. I love you more than anything.”</p><p>“Mom.”</p><p>She inhaled, “Mom no. Mom please - Mom-”</p><p>She awoke in a cold sweat screaming “Mom” just in time for her grandparents to burst into the room. Gasping and clinging to her grandmother she squeezed herself into her shoulder, “Something’s wrong with mom.” she moaned, “Something’s wrong with mom and Dad.”<br/>---</p><p>June Jacobsen had hung up the phone minutes before Charlie woke up. Harriet - (no, Coralee. She was always Harriet in her mind though.) loved her. She had always wanted her own grandchildren and Harriet had confided in her how hard she was trying, but that didn’t mean she loved Charlie any less. Richard was a good father, a single man who had fallen head over heels in love with their daughter…</p><p>She banished those thoughts from her mind. Panic overrode her emotions when she heard Charlie scream, running into the teenager’s room to find her crying. She threw her arms around her without a second thought.</p><p>She did not particularly <i>like</i> Richard Strand. The Yale professor had an air about him that made him seem like he knew everyone’s secrets. It made Coralee wary - especially when she’d confided that the Order had <i>chosen</i> her to bear his children. </p><p>The Order. </p><p>She could hear Charlie screaming in the other room still. Glancing toward the kitchen phone - hung up on the wall cord dangling to the floor, she shook her head. The Jacobsens had always been of the other - of Tiamat’s chosen. She had been raised in it, indoctrinated in it, accepted her marriage in it. Bringing the Strands into it had been required but Charlie…</p><p><i>Tiamat give me strength.</i> </p><p>More sobs filled the air.</p><p>
  <i>Tiamat give me strength to walk her path.</i>
</p><p>She inhaled and moved back to Charlie’s room. Folding brown hair into a ponytail on her head, she stroked her hair and looked at her husband. Lawrence Jacobsen had his arms crossed, having stepped away from their granddaughter to scratch his dark gray beard and grimace. When they were certain that the girl wasn’t sleeping - she set her up on the couch with the TV and a blanket. Charlie settled, sipping water and staring at nothing before June returned with a dark brown teddy bear with a pair of glasses stapled to it’s head. Plastic and well made, she had made it in honor of her father.</p><p>The thought broke June’s heart.<br/>Grabbing it and squeezing it, Charlie began to sob, curling away on the big soft couch like she was trying to vanish into it. She paced back to their kitchen in it’s shades of shitty yellow check and threw up a wall so that Charlie couldn’t peer in their mind.</p><p>Her husband looked up sharply, sipping at his coffee.</p><p>
  <i>The Kid’s not going to try and listen. She’s panicked.</i>
</p><p><i>I’m panicked. I can’t pick up on Coralee. There’s just a huge block between her and...all of us.</i> </p><p>That made Lawrence move forward to wrap his arms around her. </p><p><i>I wonder if it was this hard to bring our family into her arms when our grandparents did.</i> Lawrence was leaning against the door, and it doesn’t help that he’s so...resistant.</p><p><i>You can’t blame him. His father was a monster.</i> June Jacobsen shook her head. Despite everything and the way Richard Strand’s energy...affected her...June pitied the older man. Coralee had known him for years and he had only now begun to open up. Perhaps with time they could have had a child. A sweet little boy like his father, a tough no-nonsense little girl like her mother.</p><p>She bit her lip and felt Lawrence’s arms around her, “It’s fine. The two of them are fine. Maybe...Maybe Coralee finally found a chance to tell him the truth. It’d be for the best. Even if he doesn’t believe it Thomas Warren could work on it. Tell him.” </p><p>“Or we could. He should be surrounded by family…”</p><p>Two things happened then. Coralee began to cry and the phone rang - each ring sounding like death bells for the end of what little protective circle they had drawn over themselves.<br/>---</p><p>The Order of the Cenophaus had been around since time began, in one form or another. It only took form in the church and Thomas Howard disliked that immensely.</p><p>The notion was less of the false God and more of the potential for a true entity who could stand against Tiamat. Thankfully there were those who worked among the False God’s works - but churches made him nervous. They were wholly man’s work and seemed...blessed in a way that he could not articulate. </p><p>This however was the only place to meet the man who was responsible for Tiamat’s great plan at last moving in motion. His expensive shoes crossed tile and marble, one foot in front of the other, grim and confident. He passed priests and cardinals with an air of belonging before he moved to an unseen door and opened it - a keycard hanging from his wrist.</p><p>The vatican was the rock on which God had built his church. Peter, the bedrock of stone and ancient power. It was that which made him feel uneasy. Tiamat’s chaos flowed through the world. Here however he felt the first cracks in Tiamat’s power. It was not the ideal place to keep their unwelcome guest. Stone steps led down into the earth - the deeper they went the warmer it got. He opened a door on a landing -</p><p>And walked into cold air.</p><p>It was unnaturally cold here. Two guards milling about wrapped in jackets with Tiamat’s logo on the back and on the breast pocket. They rose and he ignored them, pacing into a side hallway. The cold kept the warmth away. It kept the warmth of the truth in the rockwork away from the man in the plastic box - the plastic cell - was trying to reach.</p><p>Howard Strand was broad in life. His son was built the same way - for academics they looked more like football players. He had been here long enough for the flesh to melt off his bones leaving him a stick thin man, broad frame eaten away to nothing with a thick gray beard crossing his cheeks and chin. His hair was cut however, he only <i>looked</i> neglected.</p><p>“...You could stand to take better care of yourself Howard.” </p><p>Howard Strand looked up at him, “...My wife didn’t like my beard either.  I’m sorry it disappoints but the last time one of your guards gave me a razor I tried to stab him with it.” </p><p>The caged man offered Warren a grim and nasty smile, “Sorry he can’t use his phone to jack off as much as he’d like anymore.”</p><p>“I keep forgetting that your son is more of a reasonable man than you.” Warren’s voice was sultry, silk on silk, “He’s successfully abandoned your ridiculous family blue collar roots in favor of logic and reason thanks to you. You should be proud, you’ve damned him to become a monster.”</p><p>A look of incredible pain crossed the older Strand’s face. He stood shaikly, wrapped in a blanket, “...It’s pointless to ask you to leave him alone. I know that. To have some degree of pity for my boy.”</p><p>“Do you think he’d extend you the same courtesy?” Thomas Warren thought of Coralee and tightened his silk black tie, “He despises you utterly for denying his gifts. I don’t have to be psychic to see how he flinches when he thinks about you. You beat a dog to train it, congratulations. You beat a man, you can train him too.” </p><p>“Why are you here?”  Howard Strand sat, looking up at him. He looked totally and utterly beaten, “Why are you here to torment me.”</p><p>“Don’t be naive Howard.” Thomas Warren’s voice was dangerous then. A serpent made flesh, “Don’t pretend that I can’t force you to tell the truth you know what I am capable of.  Your son may have the advantage of belief, of skepticism you abused him with, but you are considerably more cunning. You raised a dog, but you’re a snake in the grass.”</p><p>Howard Strand sat back at that, expression featureless. He remained stone still before something like Warren’s slime was mirrored back at the man at the center of the conspiracy.</p><p>“What do you want?”</p><p>Tiamat gave him gifts. The higher their rank, the greater their skill. Thomas Warren had inherited this position from his father.</p><p>Decades ago.</p><p>Some days it felt like eons.</p><p>“I need your blood. And some bank account information.” Warren spread his hands, “Come to me Howard.”</p><p>He had to give the elder Strand credit. He could see where Richard and Cheryl - yes Cheryl as well - got their tenacity, their sheer stubborn will from. It took minutes before Howard shuffled forward. His eyes were filled with total loathing as he pushed his palms against the glass snarling like the caged animal he was.<br/>---</p><p>Richard Strand felt finally sated, trying to get warm in the yellow lights of a diner. The last 24 hours (and it had apparently been 24) were a blur. Melanie Sharpe, his apparent erstwhile attorney was sipping soup and a cup of coffee, studying him expressionless. He hated that. He never liked it when people judged him. It always felt like they were keeping things from him, like they’d set up plywood over windows that held the secrets of the universe.</p><p>“...I have to get home.” He swallowed, “To Chicago. To my daughter. And my in-laws, Coralee’s parents. They need to know.” </p><p>“They’ve been informed.” Melanie murmured, “I believe your father in law is flying out at the request of the police.”<br/>“The Salinas County Police Department.” Richard bit back a growl of annoyance, “Paragons of investigative skill since bugfuck knows when. I want to go home.” </p><p>“You’re a suspect in her murder.” </p><p>Logically he knew that. Pushing his plate away he felt his heart clench and release, burning in his bones and skin filling him as he put his head in his hands and curled up in himself. It was logical. He knew her best, if they dug through his history they’d know about the shouting match at the motel 6. They’d know about their marriage counselor. They’d know that the Big Sur trip for his birthday was a last ditch effort to save their marriage. To either concieve a child or end her absolutely vile machinations to make that <i>happen</i>...</p><p>He still felt guilty. Guilty that he hadn’t wanted to. Guilty that he in his own way sort of did. Guilty that he hadn’t been able to take care of Coralee the way he wanted.</p><p><i>But you always do that.</i> that same little voice - a new little voice in his head that crawled in and thought the worst of everyone murmured, <i>Lisa, Dana, Amelia, Amber...and now Coralee. You vicious player you. Love’s a game and you always win.</i></p><p>“I want to go home.” He muttered, “Or at the very least I want to call my daughter.”</p><p>“That’s doable.” Melanie murmured, “Now I understand that you have an attorney on retainer? A Mr. Stoker?”</p><p>“It’s decidedly macabre.” Richard muttered, “Mr. Brahm Stoker is going to prove that I didn’t kill my wife - and oversee the hunt for her body. It’s...It’s absurd…”</p><p>He was haunted by the ghost of a gas station. Could buildings have ghosts? Many might believe they did. It was a ramshackled nasty little white thing, some relic of a bygone American past. He was haunted by the smell of the sea and the pressing, pressing pine trees. He felt sick, looking at Melanie, “...You’ll call him?”</p><p>“Of course I will.” Melanie’s voice was kind then. She had undone her complicated braid and she sighed, “Like it or not, you’re held as a suspect but you aren’t in jail. You’ll be put up in a nice hotel-”</p><p>“As long as it’s not a motel six.” </p><p>“Yes.” Melanie went businesslike again, “You mentioned last night that you and she had a fight in the motel 6 on the highway - and that you pushed her?”</p><p>Claiming that she had pushed him first would be trite, the actions of a little boy, not a grown man, “...Yes. It was cruel of me. I’m not a violent man Mrs. Sharpe.” <br/>“I’ve gathered that. And I’m chasing down the people who were in the rooms beside you to confirm the timeline with the police. Mr. Stoker and your other on-retainer attorneys will be here in the morning but in the meantime, I will drive you to where you’ll be staying. And we’ll go over your statement again.”</p><p>He growled at that. A slim waitress appeared and he thrust out his coffee cup in a silent demand for more liquid, “Coralee and I were advised by our marriage counselor - Doctor Theresa Hamm - to try and reconcile on a trip that was just for the two of us.”</p><p>The waitress returned with a fresh cup, plucking his out of his hands in a rude jerk. Richard Strand’s cold blue eyes never left his attorney’s features.</p><p>“We went to Big Sur, at her request, we toured a few of the California missions. We went camping for three days by the cliffs. It was camping without a permit.”</p><p>“You don’t strike me as the kind of man who camps without a permit.” Sharpe looked amused and Richard - for the first time - offered a smirk in response. His early life had been marked by periods of rule breaking. His features softened.</p><p>“I don’t particularly flaunt the law anymore. Not since I had my daughter.”</p><p>The two adults stared at each other before Melanie reached out and took his hands in a friendly gesture. She squeezed them.</p><p>“...Mr. Strand. <i>Doctor</i>. There are a dozen and one explanations. I can’t begin to imagine the hell you and your family are staring at. You are not alone in this. You have people with you who are going to help you-”</p><p>Her voice trailed off as the cook stood at the counter, turning up the volume on the television. The place was no Dennys, it was an out of the way ancestor of the chain restaurant. Consequently it still had an ancient television set currently broadcasting a news program. A male reporter in a pressed suit and tie spoke - grainy features fixed on Richard Strand and his attorney.</p><p>“...The missing woman, Coralee Strand, has not been seen since Tuesday. Authorities are organizing search parties to comb Big Sur and the coastline looking for a body. Her husband Professor Richard Strand-”</p><p><i>It’s Doctor-</i> Richard Strand paled, <i>Oh for-fucking-get-it.</i> </p><p>“An Associate at Yale University is currently in custody and the prime suspect in Coralee Strand’s murder. The nation’s gaze has turned to Salinas California as the mystery begins to deepen…”</p><p><i>Charlie</i>. Charlie liked the news (she did not) Charlie watched it and kept up on current events (she really tried not to). Charlie would see this. He stared at Melanie, circles carved under his eyes. Melanie Sharpe rose, putting a firm controlling hand on his shoulder.</p><p>“Come on.”  she muttered, “Come on. It’s time for the circus to start.”</p><p>He felt every eye in the building on him as she led him out to her car.<br/>---</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>A few important notes:<br/>Most of this will take place between Richard’s POV and Coralee’s POV - </p><p>-Salinas California is the closest to Big Sur, which is a stretch of California Coast.<br/>-Richard is not a medical doctor, therefore not technically a “doctor”<br/>- More about the order will be revealed.<br/>- Charlie is most definitely psychic.</p><p>If you have any other questions or corrects please be gentle and let me know in the comments!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. AMOR FATI III (CORALEE)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The saga of Richard Strand’s life before Alex Reagan continues. Coralee makes contact with the resistance, Thomas Warren plans a cover-up, Richard Strand’s personal life begins to be uncovered. </p><p>My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it—all idealism is mendacity in the face of what is necessary—but love it.”<br/>Nietzsche</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was strange, to be dead.</p><p>Coralee Strand, now Evelyn Parker, was finishing dying her blonde hair. Flakes of hair fell in the sink as she gave herself what anyone with her skills would call the traditional “shitty haircut.” She had always led a secret life. It was one her parents were weirdly in favor of. She could snap a man’s neck, she could speak two languages, she was highly intelligent and she picked up skills far easier than anyone gave her credit for. Tiamat’s blessings were good. </p><p>Not for the first time however, especially now, she wondered if it had been a good thing. If her blessings hadn’t hurt more than harmed. Her thoughts ran to Charlie, and to Richard as she paced topless into the motel bedroom to watch the news, sitting cross-legged on the bed. The reporter was a woman this time, rich red hair curled atop her head. </p><p>“The hunt for signs of Coralee has entered it’s fourth day. Parties have combed the coastline for hours with volunteers working grid searches of the surrounding area. For those joining us, the nation’s eyes have turned to Salinas California and the disappearance of Yale professor Coralee Strand. The working theory is that her husband, Doctor Richard Strand is the prime suspect.  The pair were travelling to Big Sur-”</p><p>She muted the television and returned to the mirror. Her short black hair stuck out in all directions. Standing there naked, she contemplated her failures and bit back a slow sigh, a wall protecting her from the pain of her death. Her arm still hurt. It was still strained - sprained she took a guess.</p><p>It didn’t matter. None of it did.</p><p>She sighed, inhaling her cigarette smoke.</p><p>What would Richard be doing now? Blustering probably. Yelling at everyone within reach about her. Trying to direct the search, trying to claim that he knew best. They’d find her flannel and the remains of the van - and knowing Warren other signs that she had been taken. Or perhaps had been killed. Richard would be blamed. <i>The path of the scythe</i>. </p><p>There are two paths that Tiamat’s key could take. The path of the grain and the path of the scythe. That which was to be harvested or that which was to be the harvester. </p><p><i>Growth is chaos. Do you not know this? To live is Chaos. We are not evil, not vile. We simply want new growth, to tear the world asunder is to encourage it. And so there is the key. The key will be born and he will take two paths. The world will be his field, and he can either harvest it - give birth to the key and birth to Tiamat, or he will clear the way for her reign.</i> </p><p>Her hands slid to her stomach. </p><p>If the path of the wheat had been chosen she would have birthed the key. It might have killed her leaving Richard alone anyway. </p><p>That thought had been part of the reason she requested extraction. Not the thought of dying. She would have gladly given her life for Tiamat even here and now. </p><p>No, it was the realization to her undying shame that she was not as ready - both paths could not be taken at once and while no one had ever given birth to the key - reason, logic, Richard’s patron saints, had influenced her.</p><p>She had to laugh.</p><p>
  <i>Tiamat forgive me.</i>
</p><p>Shaking her head she returned to the TV to find Richard staring at her.</p><p>She was embarrassed. Ashamed. He looked awful. Wearing a Yale hoodie and a haggard expression, he had days worth of beard stubble across his cheeks and chin. Beside him, Coralee’s breath caught in her throat. Charlie stood there, pale and shaky with the remains of tears carved down her cheeks. She sat again, fumbling as her cigarette fell and burned her hands. Reaching for the remote, she turned up the volume.</p><p>“To whoever has Coralee...I am making a plea to you. She is a beloved part of our family. She’s the mother of my daughter, my wife, my partner, my…”</p><p><i>He’s genuinely emotional</i>. Coralee set her features, praying to Tiamat for strength. She stubbed out her cigarette and folded her arms over her chest, <i>Oh my God he cares.</i></p><p>“She’s our Coralee. I am not…” His throat worked, “I am not an emotional man. B-By nature, but the reason is … because she has always been there and without her...without her all of us…” </p><p>“Give her back.” Charlie’s voice was filled with emotion, “Please. Please mom. Please <i>come home</i>.”</p><p>She said <i>home</i>, because she knew. It had been stupid to reach out to her, but Charlie had run to her, not the other way around. She would carry that to her grave, her step daughter’s love and hope that she would come home.</p><p>She turned away from the television and curled up atop the covers, struggling for warmth. The ground shook beneath her feet and for the first time she felt unsteady. Tiamat’s solid foundation rocked beneath her feet.</p><p>She woke up hours later with tears staining her pillow before she rose to dress. There was work to do.<br/>---</p><p>Thomas Warren watched the news with half an ear. He was busy talking to a police officer. He could compel anyone and everyone but sometimes it was simpler to solve things with cold hard cash. He had piles of it.</p><p>The police officer was a young patrolman. She’d brought her lieutenant who was staring at the briefcase with a low whistle of appreciation. </p><p>“I like that you knew it would have to be a hell of a lot to get me to take a bribe.” The lieutenant, “I also like that you promised an attorney.”</p><p>“We take care of our own at Deva Corporation.” <i>It’s not like you’d be able to afford an attorney that could get you off the hook for something like this - even with this much money,</i> His smile was feral, “So. You understand what I need?”</p><p>“Strand’s DNA.” </p><p>“I have ...DNA.” Thomas Warren slid a test tube forward, “With enough markers to make it look like he was the one driving that van, “It’s surely simple enough for you to ...make sure Richard’s name gets attached to it right?” </p><p>The patrolman exchanged glances before the two of them shrugged, “Hell when we’re done he’ll look like he killed Jimmy Hoffa.”</p><p>“I killed Jimmy Hoffa. He stood in the way of Deva Corporation’s planned expansions.” </p><p>The two others in the room blinked before the lieutenant laughed, “Who the hell is this guy to you? That you’re willing to bribe us to do this? He’s just some nerdy professor.” </p><p>It was Warren’s turn to shrug, “Let’s say I have a vested interest. And you don’t want to hear anything about it.”</p><p>The two police officers went blank.</p><p>“No.” One murmured.</p><p>“We don’t.”</p><p>People often asked about the nature of his power. Well no they didn’t, but if they had he would have explained that it involved her armies, and their command.</p><p>It was nothing like what Richard would possess. Richard Strand would have the power of legions at his command. Even at his most elevated, Warren could only manage the six tall men who were - unseen to all the rest - surrounding the pair of officers. </p><p>They were tall, featureless, blank and angled arms and legs with broad wide smiles filled with far too many teeth and eyes. Peering into them was to peer into the void - into other worlds - a thousand and one blinking eyes that made up the other worlds of <i>these</i>. It was terrifying. It was an awe inspiring sight.</p><p>Thomas Warren stared them down.</p><p>One officer had her head locked in place by two strong long arms. The other was held back as his mouth worked like a puppet, long black fingers digging into flesh and eyes. That moment you were seized by doubt, when you felt deja vu. That was <i>them</i>. It was always them.</p><p>The things in the dark.</p><p>The shadow men.</p><p>The shadows moved away and both police officers dropped, gasping and afraid and Thomas Warren rose and walked out of the coffee shop. His mind jumped to all directions at once before he shook his head - clearing his mind of the fog. He had to take some time, perhaps pray. Yes, that would sort him out, confirm his plans, ease the rage at Coralee and others for bringing him to this.</p><p>And Richard Strand would burn.<br/>---</p><p>Charlie Strand watched her father become a ghost.</p><p>She and grandma and grandpa had flown in to Salinas with a packed bag full of her father’s clothes. He’d met them there with his lawyer in tow, trying to still be the same larger than life presence she had always known him to be. When she had thrown herself into his arms she had squeezed and he had not let go.</p><p>They were in a nice hotel, one the family could actually afford, and she was sharing a room with him. Normally he snored lightly but right now he just scanned news reports, put on headphones for the TV so he could watch while she slept.  He was trying to be brave, asking her about schoolwork and gently chiding her about it. He would make smalltalk and then wander off in the middle of a sentence before walking away.</p><p>She sat, nose buried in a book, listening to the shower run. Flipping through pages, even comfort reading wasn’t helping and her father…</p><p>She heard the water stop and the sounds of the sink and teeth brushing before she heard a loud crack! And bolted out of bed to head towards the door and knock, “Dad? Dad! Open the door!” </p><p>It wasn’t locked. When she opened it she found him holding a pair of cracked glasses in his hands swearing to himself before looking up at her. His eyes filled with tears and she swallowed hard. It’s never comfortable for children to see their parents cry. </p><p>“...Charlie! I-” He paused, composing himself, “I’m so sorry. I think...I dropped these and they’re my only pair. I just-stupid of me.” He rubbed at his eyes, “Only to bring one pair.”</p><p>“...Grandma brought another pair for you.” Her voice was soft, “I can get them.”</p><p>It was a quick trip to their room before returning to find her father sitting on his bed staring into space. He had (at grandpa’s insistence) changed out of his yale hoodie and put on a yale t-shirt. He was holding his glasses, turning them over in his hands as she approached. </p><p>“I just-” he swallowed, “These...these mean a lot to me your mother gave me these.” He turns them over and over, “And this is going to sound really stupid but I - despite being mercilessly picked on - always liked wearing glasses. I thought they made me look ...distinguished. Like a grown up. And I can’t see without them so it was a win win so-”</p><p>“Dad I have another pair.” </p><p>Charlie held out her hand shakily. The pain he radiated was palpable, like a low current of water and air running about his arms and legs. He stared at them before looking at her as his eyes teared up again, “...Oh Charlie-”</p><p>She held him. He held her and they sobbed together before he drew in a shaking breath and squeezed her. It felt good, and she stared up at him with a frown and, “...Dad there’s something-I think you ought to- you ought to go and look…” </p><p>How to even begin to broach it with him. He looked lost and bumbling, he looked old and tired, like a sad dog that had been locked out of the house.</p><p>“Yes?”</p><p>“Nothing.” she adjusted them, “You feel better?”</p><p>“Yes. I can...I can get these...repaired? When we get home. For now.” he nods slowly, “Thanks Charlie Bear.”</p><p>“You’re so fussy dad.” Charlie wrapped an arm around his waist and felt her father slump into him, “Mom wouldn’t want you to do that.”</p><p>He shook at that, shoulders twitching as he looked at her before pulling off his new pair of glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose. Not for the first time, Charlie wondered if she should try and say something. Be for him what Coralee was to her. </p><p>“Dad. I am about to ask you something that might seem weird but-” she froze, staring at nothing.</p><p>She felt, rather than saw her grandmother knocking as Richard Strand blinked at her owlishly, “Charlie? What did you want to ask me-?”</p><p>“Hi Grandma.” She rose, “...Dad’s not doing good today.” </p><p>“Oh.” Her grandmother looked crestfallen, “Richard, do you want me to tell Ms. Sharpe you’re not feeling well? Mr. Stoker is also here…”</p><p>“I better see him.” He groaned, “...Did they come up?” </p><p>“They did.” Charlie watched her grandmother squeeze her father’s shoulder, “Listen if I can help-” </p><p>“No.” He rose, “I’ll see her. Thank...thank you both.”</p><p>Richard Strand stepped out of the room, barefoot and confused and shambling as Charlie watched him go. </p><p>
  <i>You want to help him use his gift.</i>
</p><p>Charlie Strand looked at her grandmother. The Jacobsons had been beyond pleased that Charlie Strand had developed her abilities, that under Coralee’s instruction she could speak to them and them to her. <i>It was good</i>. They had been proud, <i>It is very very good.</i> </p><p>“...She told me not to go looking for her.” Charlie felt her eyes fill with tears and she pulled herself together, “She told me to remember elements and all that crap but my father- my dad - my <i>daddy</i> is in pain.”</p><p>“Oh sweetheart.” June Jacobson wrapped her arms around her granddaughter and held her close, “Oh my loving sweetheart, oh dear Charlie Bear. He’ll be alright. We’ll watch out for him won’t we?”</p><p><i>If he did accept it. You may well be the very one to save his soul and spirit.</i> Her grandmother smoothed Charlie’s long brown hair before kissing her head, <i>But not at your expense.</i><br/>--</p><p>Downstairs Richard Strand met Melanie Sharpe who looked blank - as well as his attorney who blinked. There were two people with them - a man and a woman in the bland and blaise uniform of a pair of police detectives. Richard felt like he was looking at a pair of background extras for Law and Order. <i>Law and Order: Dead Wives Unit.</i></p><p>His chest clenched.</p><p>“...Mr. Strand…” One of the Detectives looked uncomfortable, “Do you want to go upstairs and uh - put on a pair of shoes? Maybe something that’s not sweatpants?”</p><p>“Why?” richard stared at Melanie and then at Brahm. The latter was a short squat smiling man with a walrus mustache. He had always been jovial but the smile here was tinged with sadness and something like pity, “am I going somewhere?”</p><p>“...For godsake he already spent the night in jail do we need to do this again?-” Stoker adjusted his tie. Richard blinked, looking to his court appointed attorney and his family attorney - both of whom looked uncomfortable.</p><p>Melanie Sharpe’s mouth opened and closed before the police moved forward, “...Richard Strand, you’re under arrest for the disappearance of Coralee Strand.” </p><p>Richard stared, “...You can’t be serious.” his mouth dropped open, “...Brahm? ...Ms-Melanie?” His mouth worked suddenly conscious of each smear of grime on his body, of each line of sweat and tears, of each mark of human misery, “I didn’t do anything wrong she vanished-!”</p><p>“...Blood was found along the highway and your DNA was found -”</p><p>“I didn’t hurt her!” The words rang through the lobby, “I’m innocent! You can’t arrest me!-” He felt strong hands clutch his wrists and pull them behind his back, “Stop that you’re <i>hurting</i> me!”</p><p>“...bloody and damaged clothing-”</p><p>“I’m innocent!” </p><p>A flash blinded him. And then another.</p><p>Google defines “Media Circus” as  a colloquial metaphor, or idiom, describing a news event for which the level of media coverage—measured by such factors as the number of reporters at the scene and the amount of material broadcast or published—is perceived to be excessive or out of proportion to the event being covered. </p><p>In this alternate reality of 1996 some things changed and some things stayed the same but for the sake of the situation - a college professor’s wife vanishing - there were an unusual number of reporters filling the lobby. Both Stoker and Sharpe blinked in confusion, owls drawn into the light of day as Richard Strand with the last dignity of a concerned and confused man drew himself up looking like a king among peasants despite his slipshod appearance. </p><p>The lobby of the hotel was full of light, bright stars and angry flashing bulbs. They popped and sparkled and Richard straightened.</p><p>Charlie Strand appeared behind him and something - some instinct - turned Richard’s head back towards the lobby to see his daughter in a dark red sweatshirt and a pair of jeans. His eyes went wide.</p><p>“That’s my daughter. Charlie-”</p><p>The stars pressed in.</p><p>“Charlie! Let - get off of me! Get <i>off of me</i>! Charlie! It’ll be okay I said get - can I have a little privacy please? <i>Get away from me!</i>”</p><p>The stars beamed, a thousand gleaming feral smiles behind them. He pulled at the officers, “That’s my daughter let me go- please- <i>Charlie don’t look!</i>”<br/>There is a photo emblazoned in Charlie Strand’s mind of her father. It has taken her years to remove it from her subconscious. Her father is panicked, caged like an animal, he looks angry and flushed behind his stubble and desperate. He’s a tied down wounded animal. There is a lot more there beneath this and a lot more coming but that image sticks out in her mind. It hurts to see him.</p><p>She wants to cry whenever she thinks about it. </p><p>Her father cries out going down the stairs and she turns to her grandmother who is suddenly there like a spectre.</p><p>“They’ll give him shoes in jail.”</p><p>“That doesn’t seem right. Or fair.” </p><p>“I know dear. I know.”<br/>---</p><p>Coralee watched them escort Richard out of the hotel lobby where he’d been staying. He looked like hell and, her arms crossed over her chest, she moved to the bed to sit cross legged. A dilemma in 3 acts. Either she could stop Thomas now, or let the religion she was raised in take fruition. </p><p>The same image was on every channel - a bored public growing increasingly thirstier for spectacle. She stopped on the single photo of Richard desperate and wild. <i>The path of the scythe.<i> The idea was to make him hate the world</i>. Warren’s features swam into her consciousness. <i>All men are bastards at heart Coralee. You should know this.</i></i></p><p>
  <i>Later, much later she would perhaps tell another woman in their life who had shoved her way into Richard’s soul that it was essential to love him totally because she had almost destroyed him. In her mind’s eye she could see the gentled giant being led through and handcuffed, shoved into a cell, pictured panicked and alone and scared.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>She buried her pain. Let her god rise. Let the goddess live. Or save the man she loved.<br/>---</i>
</p><p>
  <i>In jail, wrapped in a threadbare but surprisingly warm blanket, Richard Strand stared at the ceiling. There was a toilet in the corner that smelled of cleaning products. The floor was stained with the remains of the previous occupant. He was a man who supposedly killed his wife. His heart cracked and tightened in his chest as he turned over to his side. The light beat down on him.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Things like this change you. Richard Strand would forever be in favor of abolition after this. No being should be locked in a box like a toy, like a dog. Caged. He stared at the wall and wallowed in his feelings. </i>
</p><p>
  <i>It was that. That sense of isolation. That acknowledgement of his place in the world and his privilege, his desperation that led him to <i>reach</i> out with his mind.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>It was <i>stupid</i>. <i>Childish</i>.  The last time he had done this was seeing his mother at the kitchen table curled in on herself watching Bobby Mames father and mother beg for their son. All he wanted to do was help.</i>
</p><p>
  <i><i>Now I need help.</i> </i>
</p><p>
  <i>His chest clenched again.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>Please. Someone. Anyone. Please.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>---<br/>H̷̫̥̮̜̱̯̲̲̰̳̜͍͖̏̓͜͜ơ̷̗̮̮͛͗͋̈̃̔͆w̶͈̤̦̩͚͚̣̫̞͕̲͗̊̈̂̍͋̓̿̅̚ ̷̲͍̗̻̼̺̹̈́͊̃̔͝͠͠͠e̵̠͕͛̄̓̂̔̄̏̀̌̅̊̆̕̚͝v̸̳̞̄̾̽͐̒̑͝e̸̮͙̦̿̋̆͒̓͒̕r̶̨͇͇͙͎̝̪͙̗͓̯̄̽̈́͑̔͌̆͊̚̚͝ ̸͕͕͓͍͎̻̄͑͛̋͘͘̚͜v̴̮̿̔̓͂a̴̛͎̮̺̯̙̳͉͔̮͚͗̐̆̓̒̈́͒̍̅ͅs̸̡̹͈͔̹̼̟͎̻̩̃͗̓̓͌̑̏̈͛̈͜͠͝t̶̨̧̨̘̣̰̦͖͉̳̼̫̉̈̈̔̉̉̿̃̕͝͝ ̵͇͓̙̼̩̗̈́͊̏̈́̇̈́̎̑̍̃̓́̕ţ̵̧̛̦̯̺͉͕̯̲̩̗͐̌̀ͅḩ̵̮̥͖̣͈̈́̏̿͊͐͝ẽ̸̳̹̙̂̾́͒̆͒͝͠͠ ̶̡͎̣̱͍͓̺͉̣͉̮̺͕̬̻̍̾̇̀̃̌̓̉͐̑͠d̷̡̡̫̩̙̣͇̗͛͝a̷̛͆̔̃̑̋͜ṟ̶̫͕̮̠̙͙̲̤̯̖̠̰̍̅̕͜ḱ̴̙̣̳̪̖̲͍̼͆n̶̡̧̨̻̱̥̠̣̳͇̎̈́͌́́͌̾̏͘ȩ̸̨̼̩̭͈̳̫͚̯̝͖͓̉̃͑͑͐́̋̿̅̚͜͝ṡ̴̢̠̻̤̫̲͓̪̦̣̗͍̱̩̟͗̌́͝s̸̳̱̞͇͈̺̬̼̮̉͂͑͌͊͗̾͗̂̽̈̕̚͝,̷̩̫̫̟̳͉̘̫̣̣̤͐ ̷̢̺̜̥̹̲̼̦͔̣̖͈͊̐̆͋͑̾̾̒͘͜ͅẁ̶̧̞̱̬̙̞͉̼͖͍̅̿͑͜͝ę̶̛̦̰͋̄͐̃̇̔̂̕͝͠ ̷̢̛̬͉͒̒͐̽̒̑̍̄̃͝m̷̘̔̀͒̿͛͐̈̂̚ǘ̸̬͈͚̘͖̞͈̖̆̏͂͐̉͝ṣ̷̡̛̫̞͕͔͍̯͈͎̼̪̃̋͂̚͜͜t̶̨̢̡̳͔͎͍̮̰͈̹͍̲͚̏̎̏̃͛̂͌̌̓̀̅͝ ̶̢͉̬̫̪͓̙̼̦̥̳̃s̴̨̝͓͖̘̗͈̱̤̰̞͈̬̍̋̿̊̋̕͜ű̵̧̧̜̺̘̠̬̦̻̭͕̓͆͒͝p̵̭͈̰̫̜̼̫̻͈̝̼̫͊p̸̨̺̌̍̚l̶̨̡͔̜̦̮̠̤̥̤̲̤̪̮̽̄̔͆͛͛̊̈̍͝͝y̶̤͕̲̟͎͒̇̊̉̚͜ ̶͙̼̹̗̲̩̼̪̮̣̣͎͖̭̈́͆͋̀̾͐͠͝o̸͔͓̘̣̟̜̳̥̝̾̿͋̌͌̈̄̄̓ǘ̷̩͓͓̙̊̂̕r̶̹̦͖̰̃̃̈́̈ ̴̛͎̉̏̓̕ǫ̶̱̜̫̲̳̘͔͔̜̪͔̝̎́͛̉̓͂̈͆̈́͗͠ͅw̵̠̩̗͊̑̄̍̃̾͂͋̍̚ṉ̸͇̣̣̜̥̂̑̈́̌͗̐̿͑̽̍͐͊͌͝ͅ ̶̮̳͕͚̰̤͙̼̗̓̂̅̿l̶̡͉̙̞̹͓̉̍̈́̉̅̾͂̈̕͝i̴̡̢͇̪͚̜̣͎̮̬͇̕͜͠g̴͜͠͝h̸̟̺̭͓̲͗̒͑́͗̎̈́̽̇̈́̈̕͘͝t̴͓͔͔̝͓̥͇̙̃͗̈͆̊̽͝ͅ</i>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Defund the police and abolish the prison system<br/>Richard Strand is some kind of a liberal and I will fight anyone on this. <br/>Sorry for the delay! We’re goin full steam on this!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. AMOR FATI IV (RICHARD)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Richard rots in jail, Thomas Warren faces a hiccup in his plans, Charlie tries to control a Tall Paul and it backfires pretty spectacularly. <br/>Trigger Warnings: This is important. The following chapter gets dark.</p><p>Ghost imagery<br/>Death<br/>Mentions of abuse<br/>Blood<br/>Demonic imagery<br/>Demonic children.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Richard was 10 years old he was in the hospital for pnuemonia. It wasn’t entirely his father’s fault either. His school had caught a bad batch of it but asking Howard Strand to keep his children home when there was <i>learning and academic study</i> happening was like asking satan to make it snow in hell.</p><p>(His mother tried to be clever and he - to this day - appreciated it.)</p><p>Cheryl had caught it and been kept at home because his father was also a misogynistic prick but he had gone to school until he’d collapsed on the monkey bars trying to force breath into his lungs before coughing so hard he curled up wracked with spasms. Later in life he would work unimaginably hard to stay in shape, panicked at the thought of physical weakness because who knew- <i>who knew</i>...</p><p>He had been in the hospital wrapped in blankets, his mother with her hands on his head and he feeling peaceful but the problem was the food <i>sucked</i> and no matter how much he applied his mother’s academic mindset to the situation he couldn’t dismiss that it was shit, and this food in jail was the same.</p><p>“This is disgusting.” He shifted through the rice and one of the other inmates - a tall white man with gray green eyes snorted, muttering something about him being a “pussy ass bitch.”  before digging into his meal.</p><p>“It’s better than what a lot of other people get.”  </p><p>Leaving his cell had brought him recrimination - thankfully it didn’t happen often. There was another man however in his own situation - another figure who claimed to be <i>falsely accused</i>. He was a squat sort of creature with a round nose full of broken veins and thick red hair who claimed that he was innocent of robbing his coworkers blind. </p><p>“I belong in federal prison. Not here. Well, I mean I belong free but that requires convincing the ignorant masses.” </p><p>“Mnh.” Richard ate the meal without thinking and wondered when Sharpe and Stoker were going to get here. <i>Sharpe and Stoker. Sharpe Stake.</i> He wanted to laugh and wondered if sitting in his cell was driving him insane. If picking at the blankets and dreaming of a huge dragon curled like a cat beneath the earth was the sign of a broken mind.</p><p>His mother had been like that.</p><p>That scared him too. </p><p>He wanted her, and then he wanted his daughter and than he wanted Coralee and that thought spiked something in him that made him grip his fork and spoon more food into his mouth.</p><p>“...Broken into. Really every single person in here is just animalistic apart from you Mr. Strand.” The other man was <i>talking</i>, “I’m so glad you’re here. Really it’s an utter relief.”</p><p>Richard looked up sharply and adjusted his glasses, “Sorry what?” the bastard did it. He didn’t know how or where or why but he knew like he could see it, see his crimes written in stone - no they were whispered. They were whispered by the thing beneath the stone and the rocks. He felt his stomach churn staring at the beans.</p><p>That’s what was below him. <i>Beans</i>. Cold and stale brown beans. They swirled, one spiral into nothing. It was a golden spiral, carved from the spork they gave him. A spiral that is geometrically perfect. She told him to do it just like he was telling him just what Paul Blackburn did. How he liked to make people scream. How he liked to make people cry. How he was a small mean man.</p><p>Richard turned to look at him.</p><p>That must have done something as Paul sat back, eyes wide, and the other men looked up sharply  - tense as the earth waiting for an earthquake.</p><p>“I think.” He said very quietly, “That Veronica would disagree. Maybe she will once her jaw heals.” </p><p>He licked at his lips. Tired, hungry, barely warm and tormented by dreams, he studied Blackburn with utter contempt.</p><p>“She apologized to you bastard. She apologized. She apologized and you still hit her because you like watching people suffer don’t you you like being <i>cruel</i> you sick fuck-” he rose, “You wanted to watch her <i>scream</i>.”</p><p>It took two guards to pull him off Blackburn who staggered back with a bloody nose and a missing tooth. A few other people were clapping - some laughing at them but none of it mattered because he could see Veronica Blackburn swollen and beaten and desperate and sad and he was tired and sick and hungry and scared…</p><p>He lunged forward with a feral growl and the guards held him back. </p><p>“He’s not worth it! He’s not fucking worth it!” The guard muttered, “We know, we know man we know we’ve got him…” </p><p>“Then arrest him!”</p><p>“...We did man.” The guard looked at him, concerned, “we did.”</p><p>Richard blinked. Of course they did. He was in jail, waiting to be cleared because his wife wasn’t dead. He knew she wasn’t now, he could feel her some moments, pulsing against his hand, her fingers reaching for his, her eyes bright and lively. Then it dissolves into warmth and a different pair of golden liquid eyes. They smolder, cutting gold tears across dark red scales. When he’s walked back into his cell he moves to his cot and sits, wrapping himself in that same blanket.</p><p><i>Coralee</i>.</p><p>He felt like he was losing his mind. How far had he slipped from his classroom in Chicago? Were his students okay? What had happened to his office? What…</p><p>Unbidden, a memory came to mind. </p><p>
  <i>He is tired. So very tired but he has papers to grade and it’s the good kind of tired. It’s the tiredness that says he’s found his place in the universe. Stretching in his seat he leans back into a soft pair of hands and a soft chest. Blonde hair fell over his eyes as Coralee leaned down to kiss him gently.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Hi.”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Hi.” </i>
</p><p>
  <i>She had pulled off his glasses and kissed his nose, “Working hard?”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“...It’s getting better strangely.” He smiled, “I can’t think why.” He nosed against her, eyes full of love, “...Christ I love you.”</i>
</p><p>He pulled the blanket around him, tears filling his eyes, “...Coralee.” He whimpered, “...Why did you leave?”</p><p>He closed his eyes to stare into huge molten gold ones knowing a terrifying peace.<br/>---</p><p>“It’s really precautionary.” Charlie listened to Melanie Sharpe sip her coffee, “That said, I’ve been filing reports all morning.”</p><p>Brahm Stoker - her father’s attorney - looked up from his breakfast and swallowed his scrambled eggs, smiling at her, “Kid, your dad sits there a few days, we sue the police department, you guys go away rich huh? Huh?”</p><p>One of the things that Charlie had never told her father or Coralee was that occasionally - staring at people - she got a vague sense of their plans. Their hopes, their dreams and feelings. Her teacher called her <i>empathetic</i>. It was more than that. It was enough to pick up on Stoker’s three piece suit, his diamond tie clip (a small diamond to be sure), and his smile to know that he didn’t care about her father.</p><p>Her father would say it was apophenia, connecting seemingly random events. <i>Be rational Charlene. You don’t sense his emotions. You see his rich suit and you’re worried about me</i>.</p><p>She put her head in her hands on the hotel table and whimpered feeling her grandmother squeeze her shoulder. </p><p>“Charlie?” Her grandmother’s voice was soft, “He’ll be out in a few days. Isn’t that right Mr. Stoker?” </p><p>“Of course.” Melanie spoke then, sipping her coffee, “Sweetheart if anybody thought your dad was capable of-”</p><p>“Killing my stepmother.” Charlie straightened and shook her head, “You can say it. I’m not stupid. I’m not some kind of child. And he yelled at her - the two of them fought all the god-damned time and people are going to have seen. They’re going to know. And you all don’t care about finding her which you should. You should <i>because she’s alive</i>.” </p><p>She had maintained that. Awake and staring at her father’s empty bed, crying and curled up in a fetal position reaching out for her mentally. She raced across her normal pathways, through her normal haunts - but Coralee Jacobson, <i>Harriet</i> was gone. </p><p>Last night had been bad, and had perhaps made her more anxious about Stoker and Sharpe’s plans. She couldn’t remember <i>why</i>. At some point she dreamed of sticks - being caught in some kind of tree that clutched her tightly and she swore up and down she woke up with pinpricks and the faint trace of blood on her skin. Her heart pounded just thinking about it.</p><p>Despite the circumstances of her family and Richard Strand being a single parent she had never wanted and the hotel they were staying in was no exception. It wasn’t the best, but it did have restaurants and a pool and fake embossed brass everything. Standing in the lobby, her shoulders shaking, she sat on a bench and tucked her knees underneath her to stare out at the crowd.</p><p>“Excuse me.” A large woman with a nest of blonde hair atop an egg like head approached her, “Are you lost darling?”</p><p>“No.” She pointed, “My family’s just in the restaurant.”</p><p>“...Right.” She rose, “Well you sure look lost darling.”  She peered around, “Let me find someone to help you.”</p><p>What a gross woman. Charlie studied her, round and soft, flesh milky and pale and wrinkled. Her shirt read “god, guns, country, cats, but Grandma First!” and it included an American flag. She shook her head, her features filled with contempt as the woman smiled down at her thinking she was playing her, some sort of savior. </p><p>“Everything all right?”</p><p>Charlie’s grandmother was dressed severely in a white flannel shirt and an unflinching gaze. Charlie remembered her mother telling her that her family was descending from mountain men the same way the Strands had come from good sea-faring stock. Charlie thought she saw in June Jacobson’s eyes was an unflinching steel that came from people used to putting their lives on the line to make the work easier for others.</p><p>“Are you this child’s ...mother?” The larger woman stepped back, “Leaving her by herself? You oughta be ashamed- absolutely ashamed.”</p><p>“Rest assured I am.” June reached for Charlie, “Come on now…”</p><p>“Kids need discipline and authority. Kids need-”</p><p>“Talk to Jordan about what children need. He needed you to take him to the hospital.” June’s voice was ice cold, “He needed you to focus on him instead of your churchwork and your charity. People like you, are the reason I welcome the end of every inch of this hideous reality and the birth of something new.”</p><p>She didn’t breathe, she just stared, the air between them dropping. It was as if the air was muted around them. The other woman’s gaze went slack, her mouth dropped open…</p><p>And Charlie saw the Tall Paul.</p><p>It stood against the wall across from them as still as the column that seemed it had made it’s body, it’s nest. It’s world.<br/>If her father did see them (she didn’t doubt it) she wondered how much he saw. If she saw how still they stood, how broad their mouth was where their eyes should be. It wasn’t long - nothing so paltry or unnatural, it was simply wide. An elongated thing in an encrusted dirty face that spread across it’s features. Beneath it, it’s eyes had no eyelids. They were instead wide and staring and eternal.</p><p>It’s mouth moved. </p><p>She wondered if June and Coralee and the rest of them could hear them. She could - not in words but in creaks and groans and twisting skin so wrinkled that when it moved against itself it sounded like shifting rocks, like it would burst open and bleed at any moment. The thing moved <i>now</i> and she realized it was those things.</p><p>Those things her father see.<br/>Those things Coralee could control.<br/>Those things that she could <i>hear</i>.</p><p>Her heart began to pound, staring at the thing as it moved forward across the tile. It glided, shadow creaking and mouth moving unnaturally fast, it features a blur. She covered her eyes and heart rather than saw the other woman gurgle as her grandmother spoke again, she didn’t sound human.</p><p>“Your children will leave you. Your husband will leave you. All of the things that you love will die around you and you will become nothing - returning to it. Since that is how you began.”</p><p>Her voice rose and Charlie saw Paul, the thing, still standing there. It’s mouth a blur over its face and she found herself transfixed until a hand grabbed her wrist and jerked Charlie out of it’s path. </p><p>“Don’t do that.” </p><p>June Jacobson’s voice was hard and cold as he pulled her away, “Don’t do that. Don’t ever use them that way. Do you understand me?”</p><p>“But-” </p><p>The Paul was gone and the large white woman was standing there like an overweight ghost, a sagging cloud.</p><p>“But why-”</p><p>“Just trust me.” June knelt to look in her eyes, “Please, Charlie. I don’t want to see you get hurt and I know Coralee told you you could control them if you tried.”</p><p>“Grandma-”</p><p>“No buts.” June Jacobson’s eyes were cold then, “No ifs, butts, or coconuts babe. Those are tools. If you don’t know how to use a tool you don’t use it or you’ll cut your fingers off do you understand?”</p><p>“...I think I do.”</p><p>“Good.” Her grandmother turned to walk away from her. Charlie followed, feeling the shadows at her heels.<br/>---</p><p>Beneath the skin of the earth, closer to hell then heaven, Tiamat slumbered.</p><p>Thomas Warren was never privileged to look in her eyes. He was never privileged to feel her, to be wrapped in her love. Instead he watched her slumber and contented himself. She sent herself out into the world in the souls of the demons that he sought to control and contain and spread through the world in chosen soldiers.</p><p>He would have liked to look on her face. He would like to have loved her but he was nothing and he felt a flash of rage burn within his mind as he moved about in the space between worlds where she lived. </p><p>“My Lady.”</p><p>The dragon said nothing.</p><p>“My lady. Your vessel.” His throat twitched, “Your vessel is being prepared. Be not afraid my lady. You will return to us and no Marduk shall stand in your way.”</p><p>The massive curling tail shifted, claws clacking. The floor was there one moment and than molten rock the next. </p><p>Thomas Warren felt nothing. His feet would bleed and he would count himself pleased at the sacrifice.</p><p>“...My lady if you would offer me one word, one look of comfort-not that I am remotely worthy…” the claws clacked on the stone and the dragon was facing him now and he felt fear fill him. </p><p>“Should I move things forward? Would that-” Thomas Warren loved Coralee Jacobson as much as he could love a human, but his heart, his soul, his loving embrace, was the being who twisted and rolled in front of him.</p><p>“Would that please you? My love? Please. Please tell me if that would please you.” </p><p>The dragon twisted and raised a claw - a whole single claw! - in his direction. </p><p>He bowed. He had come for comfort and solace and gained instructions - real physical tangible instructions. Hair askew, eyes bright, he fell to his knees and felt pain lance up his thighs and figure.</p><p>“...I will double my efforts.” He whispered the words and pressed a kiss to the burning floor, singing his lips, “I will bring Richard Strand to you and you and he shall be your scythe. I would do this for you but since you can’t-”</p><p>The claw curled inward. </p><p>“My lady please.” </p><p>The dragon tucked itself nose to tail.</p><p>“My <i>lady</i>.” His heart hammered, “My lady <i>please</i>.”</p><p>Nothing. He had ruined it. He had devastated himself. He awoke from his meditative state and stared at nothing. His lips and knees still burned. Rising, barefoot on his rich shag carpet, he let out a whimper and fell to his knees again, enjoying the pain.</p><p>“...Mr. Warr-” His secretary appeared, “Mr. Warren! Are you all right?!” His secretary was a buxom child, a younger woman with bright red hair in a bun on top of her head, “Oh my god Mr. Warren please, please-”</p><p>“Don’t touch me.” His voice rang with command, “Call the lab.” </p><p>The lab. The lab where the children were taken, where they were plugged in and the demons took them. So few could control her children.</p><p>The lab. His lab.</p><p>“I have to break Richard Strand out of jail.” His throat worked, “So he can kill again.”</p><p>Staring at her boss, barefoot and burned and angry, she let her eyes go wide and she shook her head. If Tiamat was not so engrossing, if serving her was not such a pleasure, she would have quit and damned the consequences.</p><p>There was a time, she thought, as she went back to her desk, that she would not have thought so. Vague flashes - horror - a child - screaming and black hands -and then nothing. <br/>There was Tiamat.</p><p>There had only ever been Tiamat and Daeva. </p><p>She dialed the phone.<br/>---</p><p>Charlie Strand had an idea and Richard Strand didn’t like it. He didn’t understand it mostly. He knew he was asleep because he was still in jail, leg twisted out of the blanket, but he was standing beside Charlie who was sitting cross legged on the floor of their hotel room. She was talking to him.</p><p>It was a strange dream. </p><p>“Dad. I think it’s best I show you. Okay? I think I have to show you what we can do and when that happens you can find Mom. You can. I know you can. I just have to prove it to you.”</p><p>
  <i>This is a strange dream.</i>
</p><p>“Charlie Bear I’m not sure you know what you’re talking about…” His voice softened as he sat beside her, “I’m going to play along though since this is a dream. What are we doing exactly?” It was so strange because he could feel the carpet and the floor and he was still in his prison garb.</p><p>She was staring at him.</p><p>“Let go Dad.”</p><p>She scooted to sit across from him. </p><p>“I’m flying by the seat of my pants here daddy. I don’t want to do this alone. I need you to let go okay? I need you to believe in me.” </p><p>Her slim hands found his. <i>Your mother had hands like that</i>. They were soft and small and when Charlie looked at him and smiled she looked just like her.</p><p>“...You believed in me.” Her voice was soft, “You wouldn’t have taken care of me if you didn’t love me daddy. She didn’t love me, she didn’t want me.” She knew that. Every cast through time and space she’d done had taught her that her mother who had for some unknown reason carried her in her womb, didn’t care.</p><p>She knew Richard Strand did. </p><p>She knew he always would.<br/>“Believe in me now okay? I’m going to get you someone who can keep you safe.”</p><p>
  <i>Charlie…</i>
</p><p>Back in the county jail Richard Strand twisted in his sleep.</p><p>“Just trust me!”</p><p><i>What are you doing</i> died on his lips as he felt the room drop to below freezing. His body in one place - his fingers and toes turning <i>blue</i> - the other - Charlie’s hotel room…</p><p>His daughter was holding his hands in a vice like grip, her eyes squeezed shut. Charlie was focusing on something inward, focusing on some part of reality-</p><p>
  <i>He saw a flash of gold eyes staring at him. Interested.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Charlene Strand <b>stop</b>!</i>
</p><p>She ignored him. He felt ice collect on his knuckles. Back in the jail cell, in his body so briefly abandoned, he felt his heartbeat slow as his mouth opened in  a silent scream. He <i>gasped</i> and pulled to the left and right. A guard approached, unlocking his cell, and he felt none of it. </p><p>It was nothing. The terror of being in two places was nothing because of the thing in the circle between them. </p><p>It’s long mouth writhed - then blurred. It’s wide open eyes where it’s mouth should be stared - newborn and hungry. It’s skin was cracked and bleeding and it shifted with a sound like dry sandpaper on nails as it rose, clawing it’s way out of the circle and howled.</p><p>
  <i>Charlie!</i>
</p><p>His daughter opened her eyes, the whites obscuring the pupils in an almost caricature.  They were unnaturally wide and white. </p><p>The thing was growing taller.</p><p>
  <i>How are you doing this…?</i>
</p><p>His daughter’s teeth seemed <i>sharp</i>.</p><p>“I’m a craftsman Daddy.” The white eyes glowed, “Aren’t you proud of my work?”</p><p>He was pulled back by something - an electric jolt. Bright light and blurred figures made him scream and thrash.</p><p>“Doctor Strand! Doctor Strand take it easy! <i>Please</i> you’re safe, you’re safe.” Mutterings around him echoed that statement with a few asking curious questions <i>Jesus the guy looked dead.</i> <i>Dead fish that’s what he was…</i></p><p>“My daughter.” He grabbed for a wrist, “My daughter Charlie. She- she’s bringing something she’s bringing something here. <i>Please</i>.”  His heart was hammering. A vivid memory crawled into his mind like a loathesome thing.</p><p>
  <i>He is 7 and his father is hitting him.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Father listen - Listen to me! Please!” His voice rose in pitch, “Those things are coming! Those things are coming to the house. They’ll hurt you and mom!-”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Another slap across his face, “Please listen to me!”</i>
</p><p>“Listen. Please. Something bad is going to happen.” His hands pulled at the doctor, “Please let me call her let me talk to her. She’s going to get herself hurt…”</p><p>“We’ll call her.” The blurred figure muttered, “Tonight though you’re going to be here in the hospital ward.”</p><p>“No.” he had a vague sense that something bad was going to happen in his cell, “No. Please.”</p><p>His shouts died as something pricked at his shoulder and he fell into a deep pair of golden eyes that cradled him as he slept.<br/>---</p><p>Back at the Emery Hotel - a name found out of nowhere - Charlie Strand was panicking. Screaming. Her father had been here, she’d been holding his hands than she’d reached out and touched something  <i>big</i>. It was huge and red and she had pulled at it and she had tried to bring up ...a tool.</p><p>She awoke to her grandmother holding her arm as she gripped her back, squeezing her wrist.</p><p>“Grandma! Grandma something - I did something-”</p><p>“I know what you did.” She reared back and Charlene Strand’s eyes went wide as June Jacobson slapped her. Hard, “What did I say? What did I say you were nowhere near ready for that!”</p><p>“Grandma!” She bleated, “Grandma it’s not <i>that one</i>. Someone else sent another one into the jail!”</p><p>“You sent-”</p><p>“Yes. I did. I’m sorry.” Charlie Strand was crying now, “I’m sorry but I wanted to help daddy but I messed up bad because-”</p><p>“Because what.” June wasn’t listening, instead her dark eyes were focused on her panicking, “Because <i>what</i>?”</p><p>“<i>Somebody sent another one.</i>” <br/>---</p><p>Strand wasn’t going back to his cell tonight and Hector Smith wanted to check it to see if he could find any drugs. </p><p>That was a big deal. Nobody had a reaction like that without some kind of drugs. His heart had stopped for 10 seconds. Nobody did that without a blow or some kind of drug. Desiring to find it, the fit man padded back into the cell, unlocking it to begin a search of the room. Toilet, cot, shitty mattress soaked in sweat, blanket twisted on the floor. </p><p>He knelt, moving over the mattress to begin to search it. He felt about for rips, gloved hands digging into every vinyl hole. Then he pulled it up to flip it over and came face to face with a man lying beneath the box springs.</p><p>He was ordinary, painfully ordinary with bright yellow eyes and a grin that was far too wide for his face.</p><p>“Hi.”</p><p>Hector turned back, stepping backward once to draw his gun - when he felt long branches clutch his shoulders. The face behind him was the face of hell itself and Hector Smith let out a scream as something clung and punctured and <i>cut</i>. His scream rang out through the prison cells as other people began to shout - smelling the blood splashed across the wall like dogs on a hunt.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Notes:<br/>This chapter got dark! If you got this far congratulations.<br/>We’re just grasping at straws re: the paul demons and I’m just flying by the seat of my pants.<br/>Essentially there’s two kinds - the demons, and the beings they possess. In this case, the jail represents both.<br/>More forthcoming, thanks for sticking with it!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. AMOR FATI (V) DIVISION</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Richard gets out of jail while Charlie pays for her mistake. June Jacobson comes to a decision and the good lawyer Stoker introduces a new player. </p><p>Warnings: Demonic Activity, murder, mentions of child abuse, cult activity, government, police, prisons, violence, domestic abuse.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Richard Strand is 7 years old and dreaming. </p><p>He dreams of a being standing in the corner of his and Cheryl’s room. He dreams of gray light across the floor, pale and misty outside of their bedroom. His sister is staring at him wide eyed and his chest is rising and falling. Sometimes he stares in corners and gets anxious and his little heart goes too fast and he has to make sure that Cheryl gets out. Cheryl is smaller than he is by 4 minutes. He has to protect her.</p><p>She is crying. Her face is streaked with tears and she has her rabbit in a death grip like the thing can protect her. She sniffs, still sobbing quietly as he extends a hand to her. </p><p>Creak.</p><p>Creak. </p><p>Was it the house settling? </p><p>Or was it the thing.</p><p>The tall thing that could be the trees outside the window, or that could be the head tilting side to side?</p><p>Was it his mother moving around downstairs making a cup of tea for his father because that’s how he relaxed? He knew they were awake, their soft footfalls were comforting. Howard was never here and his mother missed them. Until he had felt the thing in the room he had dreamed of being included in their conversations discussing important books and hearing about his family travels.</p><p>Or was it a pale clawed foot reaching out for his bed?</p><p>Creak.</p><p>Creak.</p><p>“Richie-”</p><p>“C’mon.” He stretched a hand between their beds, “C’mon Cherry. C’mon.” She ran. A ghost in the night and something <i>hissed</i> audibly. </p><p>
  <i>It’s not real it’s not real</i>
</p><p>He wrapped his blanket around Cheryl and held her in his arms. She slid her arms around his waist and for one moment he felt that strange comfort like when he was in the womb. His mother’s favorite story was how he’d reached back for her when he was pulled free. <i>You and your sister! But it’s anyone. Richie you never like to leave people behind. You’re my little helper!</i></p><p>With her in his arms he felt safe.</p><p>Creak.</p><p>Creak.</p><p><i>Hisssssss</i>.</p><p>The hiss held words and he closed his eyes and began to mutter, “Go away.” under his breath. If his eyes closed he couldn’t see it. He couldn’t see the cracks in it’s skin or the twisted mouth where it’s eyes should be and eyes where it’s mouth should be and he…</p><p>“Daddy-” Cheryl whimpered, “Mommy-”</p><p>Something <i>grabbed</i> the blankets and both children <i>screamed</i>. Richard opened his eyes and days and years and weeks later he wondered and wished he’d never looked because <i>Dear God in Heaven.</i></p><p>The thing was impossibly tall and cracked with skin that rubbed against itself like rocks struck together to make fire. It’s mouth open in a perpetual scream and it’s eyes bright and wide and <i>white</i> as the sliver of moon outside.</p><p>HIs scream was nothing human, stopping only to throw himself into his father’s arms clawing at him like an animal with his sibling his other half because the thing, the thing, <i>the thing</i> the thing.</p><p>The impossibly tall thing.<br/>---</p><p>Harriet Jacobson sat in a room surrounded by three of the pauls.</p><p><i>We call him Paul because they, like Saul, have seen the light of her will</i> her mother’s voice echoed in her head, <i>They will raise other human beings up to their state of perfection</i>.</p><p>She wondered what perfection this could be - what purpose did their unnaturally long hands, gnarled and thick like tree roots pretending to be fingers - serve? </p><p>What purpose did their hideous shape, twisted shadows to serve a mockery of a chest and legs and arms, serve? </p><p>If this was what they wanted to be, she was not sure she wanted to be perfect because the worst part was their eyes (so she could see our sins) always open and focused - pupils black pinpricks of darkness. The way their mouth moved - always moved - and their cracked skin most of all.</p><p>There were three and they sat before her. The room was full of humans too - her mother and father stood in front of her smiling, the others surrounding them were friends and neighbors. Callie - her best friend - had seen an old movie recently. <i>Rosemary’s Baby</i>. All our neighbors? They’re like Rosemary’s neighbors. She’d said.</p><p>
  <i>They served Satan.</i>
</p><p>Satan here, perhaps in this world, was a false concept.</p><p>Her mouth moved and her parents gestured and she heard her mother’s voice.</p><p><i>Ask them to take you to her.</i> Her mother’s voice was soft. She gestured, then lowered her head, <i>She loves you.</i>.</p><p>They were terrifying. This was not love. Harriet Jacobson did not love these beings she was absolutely terrified and she was afraid they knew it. Staring at her, their mouths wide and sick, slowly writhing. Their mouths move and shift, lips and wide eyes focused on her. </p><p>
  <i>I don’t love you.</i>
</p><p>She bares her teeth.</p><p><i>I don’t. You’re not perfect. You’re nothing.</i>. The thing’s eyes bore into hers, <i>Do you understand me? Do you? You are nothing. You’re nothing.</i></p><p>She screamed it as the mouths closed in.</p><p>
  <i>You. Are. Nothing!</i>
</p><p>Her world was a tornado of open mouths and eyes.<br/>---</p><p>Salinas County Jail<br/>The 1990s.</p><p>---</p><p>“Our history is not our destiny”<br/>Alan Cohen<br/>---</p><p>Richard Strand’s cell was covered in blood.</p><p>Detective John Stevens lit a cigarette glaring at anyone who dared to glare in his direction. He inhaled cigarette smoke and licked his lips before bending down and sniffing at the floor. It was sticky and smelled like iron and smoke and something else - something...exotic.</p><p>“Feels like this kind of clears Strand for actually murdering his wife. Seems like she’s just missing.” He inhaled smoke, “You boys bitter?” </p><p>“He was never a prime suspect anyway.” One of the guards muttered, “I guess if he gets himself out of whatever...funk he’s in he can go home for sure. We’ll go over the DNA again.”</p><p>“The cops’ll go over it you mean.” The guard shakes his head, “...I was gonna go get a sandwich but this shit-” </p><p>Stevens plucked something off the ground and the sandwich guard fled - he could hear footsteps pounding their way out of the cell. </p><p>The second guard gagged, “...Is that what I think it is?” Stevens had waded into the blood, heedless - reaching out to pick something up between his fingers. </p><p>If one were to look up John Stevens history, you would find that he had once investigated a home inhabited by a cult. The connections to this cult would be unclear but they would be there and it is only that experience - what he saw - that keeps him on his knees as paramedics and coroners yelp behind him.</p><p>“Yep.” He drops it with disgust as the coroners rise ready to scream at him, “That’s the poor bastard’s tongue.”<br/>---</p><p>Richard Strand felt like hell and despite his lawyers talking in low hushed tones he was happy to be with his in-laws, but less so happy when he felt there was something ...wrong in the assembled group. His father in law held him up while his mother in law held his hand but the one person he wanted the most outside of Coralee-</p><p>“Where’s Charlie? Is she all right?”</p><p>“She worried herself over you.” June Jacobson stroked his fingers, “She’s back at the hotel resting. Are you all right?”</p><p>He’d spent a week in jail and resolved to never go back. He’d want no one to do so, “Fine. I’m fine. I guess I’m cleared?”</p><p>“For the moment. Or at least they think the both of you may have been targeted.” Melanie Sharpe appeared behind him, “Jesus you look like hell.” She frowned, “You’ve lost weight.” </p><p>He squeezed his mother in law’s hand, “What do you <i>mean</i> she’s worried sick. Why do I have a feeling you’re lying to me? I want to see her.” </p><p>“You will.” June’s voice was firm, “Jesus Richard.” She led him, looking around his body to Ms. Sharpe. They talked as he stared straight ahead, looking back at the men trapped behind him. Nothing felt right, “Calm down.” June held his hand tighter, “...Ms. Sharpe, how is he cleared?”</p><p>“What I’m told is that if she was attacked, there’s a chance that both of you were targeted and she was attacked first.” Sharpe murmured, “You were found intoxicated and sick.  It’s possible the two of you were targeted? The officers involved are being looked into as well.”</p><p>“Are you saying I was framed.” </p><p>Melanie Sharpe stopped walking. He turned, jerking his arms and legs out of his mother in laws hands. </p><p>“Mr. Strand…”</p><p>“Are you saying I was framed?” He felt his anger rise, “Are you saying that I was <i>put in jail</i> because the idiots in the Salinas police department <i>couldn’t fucking figure out I wouldn’t kill Coralee?</i>”</p><p>Melanie actually looked nervous. She held her hands in front of her, one wrist rubbing the other. <i>Good</i>. How dare she. He turned, pushing his mother in law away to face her, “...You people couldn’t...put it together? That I wouldn’t kill Coralee? That I love her? That I want her back?” His throat was raw but it was the anger, the sheer raw liquid gold anger that ran through his veins, “Why the hell doesn’t anybody believe me?”</p><p>His anger flared and he turned away feeling like he was burning up. He leaned into June again and resisted the urge to demand to see Charlie. What would he do? Hold her like Cheryl? Treat her like a toy?</p><p>“We screwed up.” Melanie spread her hands, “We’re doing the best I can. And Mr. Stoker and I had planned to sue the county.”</p><p>“Letting him rot to make money.” They were outside now, the world gray around them. Richard thought he could smell rain. June sounded annoyed, “...You’re all awful.”</p><p>“We have a case.” Melanie murmured, “And this means -we can turn our full attention to Coralee. Which we have been. Mr. Stoker had another idea that he wants to try with Coralee that we think might...well. Work.</p><p>He tried to bring his mind to bear on that as June moved to push him into their car, “...Fine. What-tomorrow?” He leaned against the carseat, “...Tomorrow.” The car was cheap and it smelled cheap but it was the softest most comfortable space he’d ever been in, “...Tell me tomorrow. I just want to go...back.”</p><p>“Of course.” Melanie Sharpe stood, pulling back and meeting June Jacobson’s flint-like gaze, “...Take it easy. I promise. This is almost over.”</p><p>Almost over. </p><p>Richard lay his head back and felt the car drive away, Melanie Sharpe standing stock still like a shadow in the distance. <br/>---<br/>“There’s something really fucked up about that family.” John Stevens stood behind Richard Strand’s attorney, “But hey. We’re officially picking up his hotel bill. Congratu-freakin-lations.” </p><p>“How are you so calm? After what you saw with all that blood?” She crossed her arms and pointed a long nail at him, “...You picked up a man’s tongue.” </p><p>“What did it kill your breakfast?” Stevens laughed, “You think Strand somehow killed somebody with superhuman strength? Ripped out a man’s tongue and spewed blood across the place? You know we didn’t find any bones right? You know this whole thing stinks like nobody’s business? </p><p>“...I know.” Melanie murmured. She chewed on a nail before dropping it, “...shit. I’m trying to stop biting my nails.”</p><p>“Why do you have such an expensive manicure?” The Detective pointed, “I figured it wasn’t- oh. You’re trying to curb the habit.”</p><p>She popped her cheek and crossed her arms, “You’re going to hate what the asshole’s lawyer has planned.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Oh it’s gonna make this worse.” She rolled her eyes, “You’d think that being in jail would be the be-all-end-all  of trying to drag the man poor through the mud but no. It’s a stupid idea but I’m not about to correct him.” A cold breeze blew through her hair and hit the two of them, “This weather is terrible.”</p><p>“Well I’m officially on this case now.” Stevens muttered, “So. You want to fill me in?”</p><p>“Let’s just say.” Melanie Sharpe murmured as the breeze tightened around them like long gnarled fingers, “It’s almost like Stoker wants to make an example of the guy rather than help him.”</p><p>“And you don’t want to help him?”</p><p>Her dark brown eyes narrowed, “Richard Strand is just a job.” She frowned, “You smell like cigarettes. Give me one.”<br/>---</p><p>Charlie Strand was curled up on her bed ghost white, the sheets and blankets soaked with sweat. He shoved his father in law aside and moved to her before looking back at them, “What the hell did- how did she-”</p><p>“She’ll be all right.” </p><p>Charlie’s chest rose and fall and Richard felt his hands clench, “She’s not fucking all right!” His hand moved to her forehead and he winced, “Christ she’s burning up she needs a doctor!”</p><p>“Richard.” June put a hand on his shoulder, “Richard relax. She just needs to sleep. I think you both do.” His throat clenches and he glares at the Jacobsons. </p><p><i>How dare they</i>.</p><p>How dare they presume. How dare they pretend they understand what it was and what he’d had to go through to make the creature breathing so shallow in his bed <i>alive</i>. He felt ragged, run raw and sick by the past - week? Had it truly been a week? He raised a hand to stroke Charlie’s thick curly hair.</p><p>“Richard.” Something in June’s voice made him swoon, “She’s fine. Go take a shower and sleep.”</p><p>His limbs were heavy.</p><p>“Go to hell.”</p><p>He glared around, looking for something to sit on. He found a chair and dragged it uselessly over to Charlie’s bedside so he could stare down at her heat flaring in his chest. He had hoped that leaving jail would bring him <i>peace</i>. Instead it brought only new stresses, but at least they were familiar stresses. </p><p>Heedless of if the Jacobsons were around him, he stared at Charlie before taking her hands, “...She’s prone to fevers. She always has been. Gave me heart attacks in school. You know it was funny - right after Coralee and I got married? She started to get better.”</p><p>The enormity of Coralee’s absence crashed down on him for the first time since her disappearance and he began to sob, whole wracking chest heaving sobs that made him clutch Charlie’s hand, features ruined with fluids and sweat and horror.</p><p>June squeezed his shoulder, patting him, before she left father and daughter and went back to their adjoining room.<br/>---</p><p>Sometimes there is sleep. It is good sweet sleep, the kind of which people imagine. It is almost parceled out by a benevolent god. It is almost as if a writer on a keyboard, a man in a recording studio, a figure on a television screen, a group of faceless gods deliver the message from on high.</p><p>All concerned sleep soundly and wake up refreshed.<br/>---</p><p>The Strand family woke up feeling normal - Charlie’s fever having broken as she fought with her father in the elevator down to breakfast. Good naturedly.  She insisted he clean up, he insisted she eat something that wasn’t vegetables and grains for breakfast. </p><p>“Dad you really need to consider going vegetarian.” Charlie held up a hand, “It makes you think clearer. Meat clogs your arteries.”</p><p>“Don’t ruin my love of bacon please.” He had his hands in his pockets, “I have spent the past week living off the same crap you’d eat in school.”</p><p>“Ah-ha!” She pointed a finger at him, nearly knocking into an annoyed looking woman. She collected her child with an annoyed air as Charlie pointed a finger at him, “You admit it’s crap! So why wouldn’t you let me buy my lunch from the taco bell down the street?-”</p><p>“All right, all right.” Charlie was playfully grabbed by her grandfather, “Enough. A good breakfast and then we meet with your attorneys Richard…” </p><p>“Speak of the Devil.” a familiar voice murmured, “and he shall appear. Richard. Good to see you.” He held out a hand to have it shook by several members of the party. His features turned severe as he looked at all of them with a sigh before meeting Richard’s gaze, “...You look like hell.” </p><p>Richard shook his head and sighed, “Thanks. Brahm. Thanks a million. I’m really glad everything didn’t go to shit when I was <i>in jail</i> you son of a bitch.”</p><p>“Richard.” Harold Jacobson’s voice was hard, “...It’ll be fine.” </p><p>Brahm nodded, “Look this is a long shot but I think we ought to consider it given the circumstances.” The portly man folded his hands in front of him looking at the assembled adults, “We need to have a serious discussion about Coralee and the search for her.”</p><p>“It’s not going well.” June murmured, “That much is painfully obvious.” </p><p>“Well yes.” Brahm nodded, “But I think we can turn down any avenue and if I may?...well no.” He looked over his shoulder, “...You all get settled at the restaurant and I’ll bring my potential solution to meet you.”<br/>---</p><p>The hotel had a nice restaurant. <br/>While their room came with a continental breakfast, the Strands preferred the modest breakfast bar because it came complete with a chef making waffles and omelets for Charlie, and other foods including (to the assembled surprise of the group) Lox. </p><p>Richard had, at the behest of Charlie, accepted a vegetarian omelette with grilled mushrooms and she had a waffle and a small omelette for herself. The Jacobsons contented themselves with oatmeal and the whole family drank coffee.</p><p>“...Alright.” Richard held up a hand, “This isn’t bad.”</p><p>“I told you.” Charlie crowed, “Dad I told you!” she spooned her own omelette into her mouth, “I know you better than you know yourself.”  she grinned at him and her father mirrored her smile. </p><p>That was a memory June Jacobson wanted to hold onto amid the mistrust. Amid the truth of Richard Strand.<br/>---</p><p>
  <i>Charlie is screaming, her back arched on the bed, the entire place smelling of sulphur and fire. The fire most of all. Her eyes had rolled back into her head.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Mom!” </i>
</p><p>
  <i>The girl screamed.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Mom help!”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>That had been the final straw for June Jacobson who had wrapped her arms around her granddaughter and held her as tight as she could knowing the shadow thing the girl had unleashed into the world was off to do god knows what. Richard. Richard richard Richard every scream for Coralee drove home perhaps…</i>
</p><p>Normally she could sense her daughter. She had been able to sense Harriet since she was born. Since she was baptized. Since she sensed everything and anything.</p><p>Since all of this began she hadn’t sensed her daughter at all. She resolved to put an end to this and look for her tonight - truly <i>look</i>. </p><p>But Stoker…</p><p>Stoker appeared with a woman wrapped in gauze and gems, her eyes wide and luminous, “...Everyone. I’d like you to meet Esmerelda.” The lawyer was all smiles, “She’s psychic, and she’ll help us find Coralee.”<br/>---</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Notes:<br/>From now on this will just focus on Richard and co - but we’re not done with Coralee.<br/>Richard teaches in Chicago but I mention Yale - and while an error on my part I have a plan to address that as well.<br/>This is currently unbeta’d! Hope people understand that.<br/>Please let me know what you think! Good or bad, I want to hear it all!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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